Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| In the fourth year of the persecution waged against us, twelve days before the Kalends of December, which would be the twentieth of the month Dius, falling on the day preceding the Sabbath, in that same Caesarea, something truly worth recording was carried out, while the tyrant Maximin himself was present and was putting on lavish shows for the crowds in honor of what was called his birthday.
2| It had long been the custom under the emperors, on such occasions more than at any other time, to lay on more lavish spectacles than usual for the onlookers, delighting them with new and strange sights that departed from the ordinary: sometimes animals brought in from India or Ethiopia or elsewhere, sometimes men who displayed astonishing entertainments to the spectators through feats of skilled bodily training. So on this occasion too, since it was the emperor himself who was giving the shows, there had by all means to be something greater and more astonishing in the display.
3| What, then, was it? A martyr of our faith was brought out into the middle, to contend to the last for the one true piety. This was Agapius, who, as was related a little earlier, was the second, along with Thecla, to be given to the wild beasts as food. Three times and more he had already been led out of prison and paraded through the stadium together with criminals, but each time, after the threats, the judge, whether out of pity or in the hope of his turning from his purpose, put him off for further contests. Now, with the emperor present, he was brought out, as though he had been kept on purpose for that very moment, so that in him too might be fulfilled that saving word which the Savior, by divine foreknowledge, spoke beforehand to his disciples, that they would be led even before kings on account of their witness to him.
4| He was led out into the middle of the stadium together with some wrongdoer; they claimed that this man was implicated in his master's murder.
5| Then the murderer of his master, after being thrown to the beasts, was granted mercy and kindness, almost exactly like that Barabbas in the time of the Savior. At this the whole theater rang with shouts and acclamations, as though the bloodstained killer had been kindly spared by the emperor and granted both honor and freedom.
6| But the champion of godliness was first called forward by the tyrant and then asked to renounce his resolve, with the promise of freedom. In a loud voice he declared that it was not for any base cause but for piety toward the Maker of the universe that he would bravely endure, readily and with gladness, whatever might be inflicted on him.
7| And having said this, he joined deed to word: he ran straight at a bear that had been let loose against him and gave himself up to it most gladly to be devoured. After this he was carried back to prison still breathing. There he lived one more day, and on the next, with stones tied to his feet, he was sunk in the open sea. Such too was the martyrdom of Agapius.
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