Section 355
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324 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. but taken by little and little, whilst his torturers were not per mitted to let him alone, unless after these sufferings he breathed his last before they had completed their task. He, however, per severed in his purpose, and gave up his life victorious in the midst of his tortures. Such was the martyrdom of one of the imperial domestics, worthy in reality of his name, for he was called Peter. But we shall perceive in the course of our narra tion, in which we shall study brevity, that the martyrdoms of the rest were in no respect inferior to this. We shall only state of Dorotheus, and Gorgonius, with many others of the imperial freedmen, that after various sufferings, they were destroyed by the halter, and bore away the prize of a heavenly victory. At this time also, Anthimus, then bishop of the church of Nicomedia, was beheaded for his confession of Christ, and to him were added a multitude of believers that thronged around him. I know not how it happened, but there was a fire that broke out in the imperial palace at Nicomedia, in these days, which, by a false suspicion reported abroad, was attributed to our brethren as the authors ; in consequence of which, whole families of the pious here were slain in masses at the imperial command, some with the sword, some also with fire. Then it is said that men and women, with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity, rushed into the fire. But the populace binding another number upon planks, threw them into the depths of the sea. But the im perial domestics, also, who after death had been committed to the earth with proper burial, their legal masters thought neces sary to have dug up again from their sepulchres, and likewise cast into the sea, lest any, reasoning like themselves, should wor ship them in their graves, as if they were gods. And such, then, was the complexion of things in the commencement of the perse cution at Nicomedia. But, ere long, as there were some in the region called Melitina, and others, again, in Syria, that attempted to usurp the govern ment, it was commanded, by an imperial edict, that the heads of the churches every where should be thrust into prison and bonds. And the spectacle of affairs after these events exceeds all de scription. Innumerable multitudes were imprisoned in every