martyrdom · 108 · Rome
Eusebius says he was sent from Syria to Rome to be given to the beasts, and fixes it only in Trajan's reign. The Martyrium Ignatii that supplies the amphitheatre, the date and the gathered bones is late and circumstantial and is not early evidence, which is why this event is marked traditional while the road that produced the letters is not. What is early is his own sentence, written to the Roman church while he was still on the way and asking them not to save him: I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of the beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ. The bones were carried back to Antioch and kept there for centuries before returning to Rome, which is why his burial row points at St Peter's and not at a first grave.
To make an example of the bishop of the third city of the empire, in the amphitheatre, at the games.
A death he had asked for in writing, and a corpus of letters the churches kept because of it.