2. Marcellus, as might well
be expected, was exceedingly gratified by these incidents; and
summoning one of the prisoners, by name Cortynius, he inquired of him
the cause of the war, and by what chance it was that they were overcome
and bound with the chains of captivity. And the person addressed,
on obtaining liberty to speak, began to express himself in these
terms: “My lord Marcellus, we believe in the living God
alone. And we have a custom of such a nature as I shall now
describe, which has descended to us by the tradition of our brethren
in the faith, and has been regularly observed by us up to the
present day. The practice is, that every year we go out beyond
the bounds of the city, in company with our wives and children, and
offer up supplications to the only and invisible God, praying Him to
send us rains for our fields and crops.1460
| 1460 [The
similar institution of the Rogation fasts in the West is referred to
the fifth century. Pellicia, p. 372; Hooker, book v. cap. xli.
2.] |
Now, when we were celebrating this
observance at the usual time and in the wonted manner, evening
surprised us as we lingered there, and were still
fasting. Thus
we were feeling the
pressure of two of the most trying things men have to
endure,—namely,
fasting and want of
sleep. But about
midnight sleep enviously and inopportunely crept upon us, and with
necks drooping and unstrung, and heads hanging down, it made our faces
strike against our
knees.
1461
| 1461
Reading cervicibus degravatis et laxis, demisso capite, frontem
genibus elidit. The text gives demerso. |
Now this took place because the time
was at
hand when by the
judgment of
God we were to pay the penalty
proper to our
deserts, whether it might be that we were offenders in
ignorance, or whether it might be that with the consciousness of wrong
we nevertheless had not given up our
sin. Accordingly at that
hour a multitude of
soldiers suddenly surrounded us, supposing us, as I
judge, to have lodged ourselves in ambush there, and to be persons with
full experience and skill in fighting
battles; and without making any
exact inquiry into the cause of our gathering there, they threatened us
with
war, not in word, but at once by the
sword. And though we
were men who had never
learned to do injury to any one, they
wounded us
pitilessly with their missiles, and thrust us through with their
spears, and
cut our
throats with their
swords. Thus they slew,
indeed, about one
thousand and three
hundred men of our number, and
wounded other five
hundred. And when the day broke clearly, they
carried off the survivors amongst us as
prisoners here, and that, too,
in a way showing their utter want of pity for us. For they drove
us before their
horses, spurring us on by blows from their
spears, and
impelling us forward by making the
horses’ heads press upon
us. And those who had sufficient powers of endurance did indeed
hold out; but very many fell down before the face of their cruel
masters, and breathed out their
life there; and mothers, with arms
wearied, and utterly powerless with their burdens, and distracted by
the
threats of those behind them,
suffered the little ones that were
hanging on their breasts to fall to the ground; while all those on whom
old age had come were sinking, one after the other, to the
earth,
overcome with their toils, and exhausted by want of
food. The
proud soldiers nevertheless
enjoyed this bloody
spectacle of men
continually perishing, as if it had been a
kind of entertainment, while
they saw some stretched on the soil in hopeless prostration, and beheld
others, worn out by the
fierce fires of
thirst and with the
bands of
their
tongues utterly parched, lose the
power of
speech, and beheld
others with
eyes ever glancing backwards, groaning over the fate of
their dying little ones, while these, again, were constantly appealing
to their most unhappy mothers with their
cries, and the mothers
themselves, driven frantic by the severities of the robbers, responded
with their lamentations, which indeed was the only thing they could do
freely. And those of them whose
hearts were most tenderly bound
up with their
offspring chose voluntarily to meet the same premature
fate of
death with their
children; while those, on the other hand, who
had some capacity of endurance were carried off prisoners here with
us. Thus, after the lapse of three days, during which time we had
never been allowed to take any rest, even in the night, we were
conveyed to this place, in which what has now taken place after these
occurrences is better known to yourself.”
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