Just rechecked some stuff in Musurillo's Acts of the Pagan Martyrs.
As to what he says about influence from these to Acta of Christian martyrs, I can't add to what Andrew said. Blood, earlier in this thread, I used "Acts" not to refer to the NT Book of Acts but to accounts of the "deeds" or "acts" of various martyrs in their trials and punishments. I hope that was clear.
As to the punishment of burning: In the papyrus fragment, P. Bibl. Univ. Giss. (=Giessen?) 46, the "Acta" of a trial are preserved. The work has been given the title, "The Gerousia Acta" - from Senate, I suppose. The emperor Gaius is portrayed as a character. The dramatic date, estimates Musurillo, is supposed to be 36/37 CE. He says the handwriting can be second or third century CE. At one point, "Gaius" is represented as saying that the punishment shall be to be burned. Musurillo says, p. 112, this is the earliest instance of burning as a punishment. He takes the story as historical that Polycarp was burned to death in 156, and he adds that this punishment for lower class people continued.
Acts of the Pagan Martyrs - an Anti-Roman genre
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Acts of the Pagan Martyrs - an Anti-Roman genre
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]