BARBARA, SAINT, a virgin martyr and saint of the Ro man Catholic and Orthodox Eastern Churches, whose festival day is December 4. She was the daughter of a heathen named Dio sorus who kept her carefully guarded in a tower ; during his ab sence on a journey she caused three windows to be made in her bath-house, as a symbol of the Trinity, instead of the two which her father had intended, and on his return she confessed herself to be a Christian. He dragged her to the prefect of the province, who had her tortured and beheaded. Her father, who himself carried out the death sentence, was struck by lightning as a pun ishment on the way home. Probably for this reason Barbara was regarded as the patron saint in thunderstorms, and as the pro tectress of artillerymen and miners. She is represented in art as standing by a tower with three windows, sometimes with cannon near by. The place of her martyrdom is variously given as Heliopolis, as a town of Tuscany, and as Nicomedia, Bithynia, about the year 235.