Life and Martyrdom
According to the synaxarion, Zenobios and Zenobia were brought up in the Christian faith from childhood and lived piously, giving away their inherited wealth to the poor. The Lord granted Zenobios the gift of healing various maladies, and for this reason he was appointed bishop of a Christian community at Aegae in Cilicia.
During the persecution under Emperor Diocletian (reigned 284–305), Zenobios was arrested and brought before the governor Licius. Offered his life in exchange for renouncing Christ, he is recorded to have answered that life without Christ is itself death, and that he would rather endure present torment for his Creator and then live eternally with him than deny him to preserve the present life. Licius ordered him crucified.
Seeing her brother's suffering, Zenobia confessed her own faith in Christ before the governor and was likewise subjected to torture. By tradition the two were placed on a red-hot iron bed and then in a boiling kettle, yet survived, and were finally beheaded. A priest named Hermogenes is said to have secretly buried both martyrs together in a single grave.