Section 120
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88 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. of the poorer sort. Then locking themselves in the most retired parts of their houses, some, from excessive hunger, eat the grain unprepared ; others however, baked it according as necessity or fear directed. As to a table, there was none set any where ; but taking the food from the fire, they tore it asunder yet crude and raw. Wretched indeed was the fare, and a lamentable sight it was, where the most powerful grasped after all, and the weaker were constrained to mourn. For famine surpasses all other evils, but it destroys nothing so effectually as shame ; for that which would otherwise demand some regard, is contemned in this. Thus wives tore away the food from the very mouths of their husbands, children from their parents, and what was most wretched of all, mothers from their infants ; so that whilst their dearest children lay wasting in their arms, there was not shame enough to prevent them taking away the very drops that supported life. And even in doing this, they did not remain undiscovered ; for whenever they saw a door locked, this was a sign that those within were taking food, and then immediately bursting open the doors they rushed in, and choked them, almost forcing the morsels out of their very throats. Old men were beaten that held back their food, and women were torn by the hair, if they concealed what they had in their hands. Nor was there any pity for gray hairs or for infants ; but taking up the infants clinging to the morsels, they dashed them to the ground. But they were much more cruel to those who anticipated their entrance, and were devouring what they wished to seize, just as if they had been wronged by them. They also devised terrible modes of torture, to discover where there was any food. For by cruel devices to prevent every relief of nature, they caused the unhappy individual to suffer such tor ment,* that the very recital makes one shudder at what he would endure, before he confessed that he had one loaf of bread, or that he had a single handful of wheat concealed. The tormentors themselves, however, suffered no want ; for it might have been some palliation, if necessity had compelled them thus. But they The passages that we have here thrown into one, are thus given by Vales us : Nam miseris hominibus ipsos quidem genitalium meatus ervis obturabant, podieem prseacutis sudibus ttansfigebant."