The emperor Diocletian, failing to persuade the three virgins Agape, Chione, and Irena to renounce their Christian faith and sacrifice to the Roman gods, consigns them to prison. Governor Dulcitius sees the girls' beauty and desires them so he commands that they be locked up in the kitchen. During the night, he enters the kitchen and, believing he is embracing and caressing the girls, fondles the pots and pans. He exits, unaware that he is now blackened with soot from the kitchen utensils. Offended because his soldiers run from him in fear, Dulcitius demands to see the emperor, but the guards, not recognizing him, beat him and deny his admittance. When his wife appears tearing her hair and lamenting that he has been made such a fool, he finally realizes his condition. He angrily demands that the girls be stripped and publicly exposed.
The soldiers attempt to carry out Dulcitius's orders, but the robes refuse to come off the bodies of the three girls. Diocletian orders Count Sisinnius to punish the girls. Sisinnius is sympathetic to Irena, the youngest of the three girls, and orders her to be kept in prison while the other two are punished. Agape and Chione are burned at the stake, but the flames leave their clothing and their bodies unharmed as their souls rise to heaven. Irena refuses to renounce her faith despite Sisinnius's threats of death or torture. He orders her to be confined in a brothel, and the soldiers carry her away.
A short time later, the soldiers return with the news that two splendidly-dressed men with radiant countenances appeared and claimed that Sisinnius had sent them to bear Irena to the top of a mountain. Sisinnius himself pursues Irena, but is unable to find a path to the summit where Irena stands, taunting him and pronouncing his damnation. At Sisinnius's order, a soldier shoots Irena with an arrow and she dies, reaching toward heaven.
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