Biography
Caius of Milan
About Caius of Milan
Caius is remembered among the earliest bishops of Milan, as the successor of Anathalon. A critical account places his episcopate around the turn of the second and third centuries, rather than in apostolic times.
The old episcopal lists preserve little more than his name, place in the succession and a burial tradition. They associate his deposition with September 26 and the Naborian basilica, not a secure year of death.
Much fuller stories appear in an eleventh-century legend, which makes him a disciple of Barnabas and credits him with conversions. Those accounts seek an apostolic origin for the Milanese church; they do not establish Caius's personal itinerary or family.
One modern diocesan history cautiously connects his Latin name with Christianity taking root among local people. His place in Milan's Christian memory continues in the cathedral's account of its beginnings, where he is named among the early bishops rather than credited with the later building.
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