Section 366
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 335 sire cruelty : it was more proper that the benefits afforded by their humane and imperial majesties, should be extended to all, and that we should no longer be punished with death. For we were liberated from this punishment by the great clemency of the emperors. After this, therefore, they were ordered only to tear out our eyes, to deprive us of one of our legs. Such was their kindness, and such the lightest kind of punishment against us ; so that in consequence of this humanity of theirs it was impossible to tell the great and incalculable number of those that had their right eye dug out with the sword first, and after this seared with a red hot iron; those too, whose left foot was maimed with a searing iron ; after these, those who in different provinces were condemned to the copper mines, not so much for the service as for the contumely and misery they should endure. Many, also, endured conflicts of other kinds, which it would be impossible to detail ; for their noble fortitude surpasses all power of descrip tion. In this the magnanimous confessors of Christ that shone conspicuous throughout the whole world, every where struck the beholders with astonishment, and presented the obvious proofs of our Saviour's divine interposition in their own persons. And hence, to mention each by name, would be at least a long and tedious work, not to say impossible. CHAPTER XIII. Those prelates that evinced the reality of the religion they pro claimed with their blood. OF those prelates of the church, however, who suffered mar tyrdom in the most celebrated cities, the first of which we shall mention, recorded by the pious as a witness of the kingdom of Christ, is Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia, who was beheaded. Of the martyrs at Antioch, we also name Lucian, that presbyter of this church, who during all his life was pre-eminent for his ex cellent character and piety. He had before, at Nicomedia, and in the presence of the emperor, proclaimed the heavenly king31