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De la mort des persécuteurs de l'église

XL.

Il y avait une dame de qualité et assez âgée; Valéria la considérait comme une seconde mère; Maximin la soupçonna d'être cause du refus de Valéria. Il commanda au président Eratinéus de la faire mourir honteusement. On joignit à elle deux autres femmes de condition, dont l'une était amie secrète de l'impératrice, et avait laissé à Rome une de ses filles de chambre parmi les vestales; l'autre n'avait pas grand commerce avec elle, et avait épousé un sénateur. Mais la beauté et la pudeur de ces deux femmes furent cause de leur perte. On les traîne donc, non pas devant un juge, mais devant un assassin. Point d'accusateur. On suborne un juif coupable d'autres forfaits, on lui promet sa grâce pourvu qu'il dépose contre ces femmes. Le juge, appréhendant d'être lapidé s'il instruisait ce procès dans la ville, en sortit accompagné de gens armés. Toute cette tragédie se passait à Nicée. Enfin on les condamne ; leur innocence ne leur sert de rien ; non seulement le mari, qui assistait sa fidèle épouse, mais tous ceux que la nouveauté de cette injustice avait attirés à ce spectacle, fondaient en larmes. De peur que le peuple ne sauvât ces dames infortunées, on les conduisit au supplice au milieu de gens armés. Et comme la frayeur avait écarté leurs domestiques, elles auraient manqué de sépulture si la charité secrète de leurs amis n'eût pris soin de leurs funérailles. Le misérable qui s'était déclaré complice de leurs adultères ne jouit pas de l'impunité promise. On l'attacha à un gibet, où il découvrit tout ce mystère d'iniquité; et sur le point de rendre le dernier soupir, il déclara que l'on avait fait mourir des innocentes.

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Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died

Chap. XL.

There was a certain matron of high rank who already had grandchildren by more than one son. Her Valeria loved like a second mother, and Daia suspected that her advice had produced that refusal which Valeria gave to his matrimonial offers; and therefore he charged the president Eratineus to have her put to death in a way that might injure her fame. To her two others, equally noble, were added. One of them, who had a daughter a Vestal virgin at Rome, maintained an intercourse by stealth with the banished Valeria. The other, married to a senator, was intimately connected with the empress. Excellent beauty and virtue proved the cause of their death. They were dragged to the tribunal, not of an upright judge, but of a robber. Neither indeed was there any accuser, until a certain Jew, one charged with other offences, was induced, through hope of pardon, to give false evidence against the innocent. The equitable and vigilant magistrate conducted him out of the city under a guard, lest the populace should have stoned him. This tragedy was acted at Nicaea. The Jew was ordered to the torture till he should speak as he had been instructed, while the torturers by blows prevented the women from speaking in their own defence. The innocent were condemned to die. Then there arose wailing and lamentation, not only of the senator, who attended on his well-deserving consort, but amongst the spectators also, whom this proceeding, scandalous and unheard of, had brought together; and, to prevent the multitude from violently rescuing the condemned persons out of the hands of the executioners, military commanders followed with light infantry and archers. And thus, under a guard of armed soldiers, they were led to punishment. Their domestics having been forced to flee, they would have remained without burial, had not the compassion of friends interred them by stealth. Nor was the promise of pardon made good to the feigned adulterer, for he was fixed to a gibbet, and then he disclosed the whole secret contrivance; and with his last breath he protested to all the beholders that the women died innocent.