He is another Roman martyr whose historicity is also very genuine, although in this case, we lack certain historical elements about his life and the manner of his martyrdom, as the written passion that has come down to us is a literary fiction, probably from the 6th century. His tomb is located in the Octavilla Cemetery, at the second milestone of the Via Aurelia, near Rome, where his basilica is situated.
The ancient Roman liturgical books commemorated the martyrs of the Via Ardeatina and the Via Aurelia on May 12, but they did so separately. This is unlike the later pre-conciliar liturgical books (missal and breviary), which combined Nereus, Achilleus, and Pancras in a single memory (one collect), as they did with other martyrs of the same day, like Fabian and Sebastian.
