Historical Context
The deaths of the 120 martyrs fall within the prolonged persecution of Christians in the Sasanian Empire under Shapur II, which intensified in the 340s. The persecution had political as well as religious roots: once the Roman emperor Constantine embraced Christianity and styled himself defender of Christians, including those living under Persian rule, the Persian court began to view its Christian population as suspect. As Shapur II prepared for war with Rome, he imposed a double tax on Christian subjects to help finance the conflict, and resistance to these demands sharpened the conflict further.
The scale of this persecution was very large. The early Church historian Sozomen reckoned the identifiable martyrs at upwards of sixteen thousand, with many more whose names were never recorded. Among the better-documented victims of the same period was Barbasceminus, bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, executed with sixteen of his clergy on 14 January 346. The 120 martyrs commemorated on April 6 are remembered as one company drawn from this wider company of the persecuted.