Note 1391 — Chapter II · GREECE AND ROME.

Tormentorum genera inaudita excogitabantur (Ibid. cap. xv.).—When the Christians were accused of an attempt to burn the imperial palace, Diocletian “ira inflammatus, excarnificari omnes suos protinus præcipit. Sedebat ipse atque innocentes igne torrebat” (Ibid. cap. xiv.).—Lactantius, or whoever was the real author of the tract, addresses the priest Donatus to whom it is inscribed: “Novies etiam tormentis cruciatibusque variis subjectus, novies adversarium gloriosa confessione vicisti.... Nihil adversus te verbera, nihil ungulæ, nihil ignis, nihil ferrum, nihil varia tormentorum genera valuerunt” (Ibid. cap. xvi.). Ample details may be found in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. Lib. V. c. 1, VI. 39, 41, VIII. passim, Lib. Martyrum; and in Cyprian, Epist. X. (Ed. Oxon. 1682).