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De mortibus persecutorum

15.

[1] Furebat ergo imperator iam non in domesticos tantum, sed in omnes; et primam omnium filiam Valeriam coniugemque Priscam sacrificio pollui coegit. [2] Potentissimi quondam eunuchi necati, per quos palatium et ipse ante constabat; comprehensi presbyteri ac ministri et sine ulla probatione aut confessione damnati cum omnibus suis deducebantur. [3] Omnis sexus et aetatis homines ad exustionem rapti, nec singuli, quoniam tanta erat multitudo, sed gregatim circumdato igni ambiebantur; domestici alligatis ad collum molaribus mari mergebantur. [4] Nec minus in ceterum populum persecutio violenter incubuit. Nam iudices per omnia templa dispersi universos ad sacrificia cogebant. [5] Pleni carceres erant, tormentorum genera inaudita excogitabantur, et ne cui temere ius diceretur, arae in secretariis ac pro tribunali positae, ut litigatores prius sacrificarent atque ita causas suas dicerent, sic ergo ad iudices tamquam ad deos adiretur. [6] Etiam litterae ad Maximianum atque Constantium commeaverant, ut eadem facerent: quorum sententia in tantis rebus expectata non erat. Et quidem senex Maximianus libens paruit per Italiam, homo non adeo clemens. [7] Nam Constantius, ne dissentire a maiorum praeceptis videretur , conventicula, id est parietes, qui restitui poterant, dirui passus est, verum autem dei templum, quod est in hominibus, incolume servavit.

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Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died

Chap. XV.

And now Diocletian raged, not only against his own domestics, but indiscriminately against all; and he began by forcing his daughter Valeria and his wife Prisca to be polluted by sacrificing. Eunuchs, once the most powerful, and who had chief authority at court and with the emperor, were slain. Presbyters and other officers of the Church were seized, without evidence by witnesses or confession, condemned, and together with their families led to execution. In burning alive, no distinction of sex or age was regarded; and because of their great multitude, they were not burnt one after another, but a herd of them were encircled with the same fire; and servants, having millstones tied about their necks, were cast into the sea. Nor was the persecution less grievous on the rest of the people of God; for the judges, dispersed through all the temples, sought to compel every one to sacrifice. The prisons were crowded; tortures, hitherto unheard of, were invented; and lest justice should be inadvertently administered to a Christian, altars were placed in the courts of justice, hard by the tribunal, that every litigant might offer incense before his cause could be heard. Thus judges were no otherwise approached than divinities. Mandates also had gone to Maximian Herculius and Constantius, requiring their concurrence in the execution of the edicts; for in matters even of such mighty importance their opinion was never once asked. Herculius, a person of no merciful temper, yielded ready obedience, and enforced the edicts throughout his dominions of Italy. Constantius, on the other hand, lest he should have seemed to dissent from the injunctions of his superiors, permitted the demolition of churches,--mere walls, and capable of being built up again,--but he preserved entire that true temple of God, which is the human body. ¹