The circumstance that the pope, whatever his name may have been, had been twice a confessor for the Faith also suits Liberius, who had been banished under the Arian Constantius to Berœa (355-357). After the Councils of Seleucia and Rimini in 359, Constantius even desired his death, because he refused to subscribe to the Arian Creed, and he was obliged to remain in hiding for two years in the catacombs until the death of the tyrant (November 361).[678] The opinion that the martyrdom of St Cecilia took place under Alexander Severus has hitherto received the most support, and the difficulties have been explained on the supposition that it happened while the emperor was absent from the capital; this, however, is arbitrary, and does not really remove the other difficulties. There is no need to dwell upon the dates which have been assigned in more recent times. With regard to the more ancient dates, Ado, Usuardus, and De Rossi place the martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, plainly on account of the use of the plural by the prefect when he said (c. 24) “the emperors” had commanded that the Christians should be punished by death, but this general command was repeated during all the persecutions from Nero to Diocletian. Less wide of the mark is the most ancient attempt of all to fix the date, _i.e._, made by the first compiler of the _Liber Pontificalis_, for although not remarkable for historical knowledge, he places the death of Cecilia under Diocletian. The family of the Turcii did not belong to Rome, but came from Samnium, where one of the name in the third century is mentioned as a proprietor of brick works in Aufidena.[679] Various members of the family quickly made their way to high offices in the State,[680] and in the summer of 363 a Turcius Apronianus was prefect of Rome, where he distinguished himself as a persecutor of the Christians. His wife, however, was a sister of the elder Melania, St Jerome’s pupil, through whose influence the whole family was baptised in 397. As a Christian Turcius Apronianus enjoyed the friendship of St Paulinus of Nola and the priest Rufinus.[681] His descendants flourished all through the fifth century, at the end of which a Turcius Asterius Secundus was consul. All this, taken in conjunction with the influential position of the family, easily accounts for the absence, in ecclesiastical literature of a subsequent period, of references to St Cecilia, at whose death a Turcius had played such an evil part. Otherwise it would be incredible that the preacher and poets of that date should have passed over a story which presented so many points of interest.[682] Nothing more is known of Turcius Almachius than what is related in the passion of St Cecilia. He must have been prefect from the end of 361 to the autumn of 362.