00:00Serge and Bacchus were two high-ranking officers in the Roman army, close to the imperial court and united
00:07through a loyalty that their former passion presents as inseparable.
00:12Admired soldiers, comrades-in-arms, and clandestine Christians, they shared their faith in a world where loyalty to the
00:19'The emperor also expected to sacrifice to the god of Rome.'
00:24When their Christianity was discovered, they refused to participate in a sacrifice in honor of Zeus.
00:31The emperor had them stripped of their military insignia, dressed in women's clothing, and led publicly through the streets.
00:40This humiliation targeted their honor, but also their masculinity.
00:45Before breaking their bodies, the power sought to ridicule what bound them together and what they
00:51represented.
00:53They were handed over to Governor Antiochus and tortured together.
00:58Bacchus died from the blows.
01:00According to the traditional account, he then appeared to Serge to encourage him and promise that they would soon be reunited.
01:09Serge continued his martyrdom alone before being beheaded near Resapha, in Syria.
01:16The city later became Sergiopolis, an important place of pilgrimage dedicated to his memory.
01:23Christian tradition has almost never separated them.
01:27Their names are pronounced together, their images show them side by side, and their very sanctity seems to form a
01:35A two-way narrative.
01:37It is this close relationship that has led some modern historians, notably John Boswell, to see Sergius and Bacchus as more
01:46than brothers in arms.
01:48Perhaps two men who loved each other like a couple.
01:52No ancient text explicitly states that they had a sexual relationship.
01:57Simply calling them homosexuals would, moreover, impose on Antiquity a category that appeared much later.
02:05But to assert with certainty that they could only have been simple comrades would be just as risky.
02:12The sources have maintained the intensity of their links while leaving its exact nature in the shadows.
02:18Were they friends, spiritual brothers, or lovers?
02:23We don't know.
02:25What we do know is that their memory rests on the love, loyalty, and courage shared by
02:32two men whom neither the army, nor humiliation, nor death could separate.
02:39Perhaps it is this ambiguity that continues to disturb as much as it fascinates.
02:45Serge and Bacchus remind us that a deep bond between two men can be told as a story of holiness, without
02:53to be reduced to scandal nor emptied of its mystery.
