Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| When the second year had come round and the war against us had grown fiercer still, Urban being governor of the province at that time, imperial letters reached him, the first in which, by a general ordinance, all the people of every city without exception were commanded to sacrifice and to pour libations to the idols. Then in Gaza, a city of Palestine, Timothy endured countless tortures and, after them all, was given over to a slow and gentle fire; and having offered, through his endurance in everything, the truest proof of the truest piety toward the divine, he carried off the crown of the athletes of godliness who win in the sacred games. Together with him Agapius, and Thecla of our own day, after showing the noblest resistance, were condemned to be food for wild beasts.
2| Who that saw what followed did not marvel, or who that learned it by hearsay was not astounded? The pagans were holding a public festival for the whole people and their customary shows, and there was much talk that, along with the other entertainments they were so keen on, those just condemned to the beasts would also be put on display in the contest.
3| As the rumor grew and spread among everyone, six young men came forward. One of them was by birth from Pontus, Timolaus by name; another, from Tripolis in Phoenicia, was called Dionysius; another of them was a subdeacon of the community at Diospolis, and his name was Romulus; besides these there were two Egyptians, Paesis and Alexander, and another Alexander, who bore the same name as the latter, one of the people of Gaza. Urban was about to go up to the hunt, and they first bound their own hands, to signal their intense eagerness for martyrdom, and then ran up to him at full speed, confessing themselves to be Christians, and displaying by their readiness to face every terror that those who glory in piety toward the God of the universe do not shrink even from the onslaught of wild beasts.
4| At once, having thrown the governor himself and those around him into no ordinary consternation, they were shut up in prison. A few days later two others were enrolled with them. One of these had already, even before them, contended in terrible and varied tortures at earlier confessions; his name too was Agapius. The other had been ministering to their bodily needs; his name too was Dionysius. So all of them, eight in number, were beheaded on a single day, at Caesarea itself, in the month Dystrus, on its twenty-fourth day, which also happened to be the ninth day before the Kalends of April.
5| Meanwhile a change took place among the rulers: the one who stood highest of all, and the one second after him, both withdrew to the condition of private citizens, and public affairs began to sicken.
6| A little later the Roman empire split against itself, and a war without truce was stirred up among them; nor did the strife, and the turmoil that came with it, settle down until peace for us had been established throughout the whole world under Roman rule.
7| For as soon as that peace dawned upon everyone like light out of a gloomy and utterly dark night, the Roman government's public affairs became once more stable, friendly and peaceful, recovering the goodwill toward one another that they had held from their forebears. But we shall give a fuller account of these things at the proper time. For now, let us go on to what follows in its order.
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