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by changing places he was eager to be unseen and to dissolve the prevailing opinion about him 5.10.4 by frequent relocations. At last, sailing along Cyprus, he landed at Paphos. And having been urged by the then bishop of the Cypriots, he came to love the life there, and pursued philosophy near Charybris, a place so named. Flight, therefore, was the reason this man did not suffer martyrdom; but he fled, because it is a sacred command not to wait for the persecutors, but if they should be caught while being pursued, to become courageous and superior to the compulsion of the persecutors. 5.10.5 Not only among the Gazans and Alexandrians were the aforementioned things dared against the Christians; but the inhabitants of Heliopolis near Lebanon and Arethusa in Syria appear to have surpassed even these in excess of cruelty. 5.10.6 For the former (and it would be incredible to tell, if some who lived at that time had not reported it) compelled sacred virgins, who were unaccustomed to being seen by a crowd, to stand publicly stripped of their clothing as a common spectacle and object of outrage for those who wished; and after first treating them with drunken violence as they pleased, they at last cut them open; and having cut them in two, they invited the swine to feast on their entrails, having covered the viscera on the surface with their usual food, so that the pigs would not easily distinguish, but out of necessity, desiring their accustomed food, would also tear apart the human flesh. 5.10.7 As I conjecture, what led the Heliopolitans to such cruelty against the sacred virgins was their being forbidden, as had previously been their ancestral custom, for the virgins there to be prostituted by anyone who happened by, before they joined their betrothed in marriage. For Constantine, having demolished the temple of Aphrodite in Heliopolis, then first built a church among them, and by law forbade them to perform their customary prostitutions. 5.10.8 But the Arethusans pitiably did away with Mark, who had been their bishop, an old man, venerable for his gray hair and his life. They had been angry with him before; for more zealously than by persuasion, when Constantius was emperor, he had converted the Hellenists to Christianity and had demolished their most 5.10. venerable and magnificent temple. When the rule passed to Julian, seeing that the populace was stirred up against him, and at the same time having been condemned by the emperor's order either to pay the assessed value of the temple or to rebuild it, he reasoned that both were impossible, and the second was otherwise unlawful for a Christian, 5.10.10 let alone a priest, and so he fled at first; but learning that many were in danger because of him, and were experiencing draggings and courts and the terrible things in them, he returned from his flight and voluntarily presented himself to the crowd to do to him whatever they wished. 5.10.11 But they, from whom he ought to have been praised all the more for having demonstrated an action befitting a philosopher, thinking themselves to have been utterly despised, the whole populace advanced against him; and they dragged him through the streets, pushing and plucking him and each one striking whichever of his limbs they chanced upon; and the drama was performed by men and women and every age with zeal and anger, so that they even cut his ears with thin cords; and boys attending school made a game of the affair, and lifting him up and tossing him to one another, they both threw and caught him with their styluses 5.10.12 and stabbed him unsparingly. When his whole body had become one wound, but he still yet breathed, they anointed him with honey and fish-sauce and, putting him into a basket (this is a net made entirely of rushes), they raised him on high. At which time, it is said, as wasps and bees flew upon him and were devouring his flesh, he said to the Arethusans that he himself was on high, but he saw them low and treading the ground, and by this he conjectured what would happen to himself and to them hereafter. 5.10.13 And the story goes that the prefect at that time, who was a Hellenist to the utmost degree, but noble in character, so that even now the opinion concerning him prevails, admired Mark for his endurance

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τῷ τοὺς τόπους ἀμείβειν ἐσπούδαζεν ἄδηλος εἶναι καὶ τὴν κρατοῦσαν περὶ αὐτοῦ δόξαν δια5.10.4 λύειν ταῖς συχναῖς μετοικήσεσι. τὸ δὴ τελευταῖον παραπλέων τὴν Κύπρον κατῆρεν εἰς Πάφον. προτραπείς τε παρὰ τοῦ τότε Κυπρίων ἐπισκόπου ἠγάπησε τὴν ἐνθάδε διατριβὴν καὶ περὶ Χάρυβριν, χωρίον οὕτως ἐπονομαζόμενον, ἐφιλοσόφει. τοῦ μὲν οὖν μὴ μαρτυρῆσαι τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον αἴτιον ἡ φυγή· ἔφυγε δέ, καθότι πρόσταγμά ἐστιν ἱερὸν μὴ περιμένειν τοὺς διώκοντας, εἰ δὲ ληφθεῖεν διωκόμενοι, ἀνδρείους γίνεσθαι καὶ κρείττους τῆς τῶν διωκόντων ἀνάγκης. 5.10.5 Οὐ παρὰ μόνοις δὲ Γαζαίοις καὶ ᾿Αλεξανδρεῦσι τὰ εἰρημένα κατὰ τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἐτολμήθη· φαίνονται δὲ καὶ τούτους ὠμότητος ὑπερβολῇ νενικηκότες οἱ τὴν πρὸς τῷ Λιβάνῳ ῾Ηλιούπολιν καὶ τὴν ᾿Αρέθουσαν τῆς Συρίας 5.10.6 οἰκοῦντες. οἱ μὲν γάρ (ἄπιστον δὲ καὶ λέγειν εἰ μή τινες τῶν κατ' ἐκεῖνο καιροῦ γεγονότων ἀνήγγειλαν) παρθένους ἱερὰς ἀήθεις ὁρᾶσθαι παρὰ πλήθους, δημοσίᾳ γυμνὰς ἐσθῆτος ἵστασθαι κατηνάγκασαν εἰς κοινὸν τῶν βουλομένων θέατρόν τε καὶ ὕβριν· ἐμπαροινήσαντες δὲ πρότερον ᾗ ἑδόκει τὸ τελευταῖον ἀνέκειραν αὐτάς· καὶ διχῇ ἀνατεμόντες, ἐπὶ τὴν βρῶσιν τῶν ἐγκάτων προσεκαλοῦντο τοὺς χοίρους, συνήθει τούτοις τροφῇ ἐπιπολῆς τὰ σπλάγχνα καλύψαντες, ὥστε μὴ ῥᾳδίως τοὺς ὗς διακρίνειν, ἀλλ' ἐξ ἀνάγκης τῆς εἰωθυίας τροφῆς ὀρεγομένους καὶ τὰ ἀνδρόμεα κρέα σπαράττειν. 5.10.7 ὡς δὲ συμβάλλω, εἰς τοσαύτην ὠμότητα κατὰ τῶν ἱερῶν παρθένων προήγαγε τοὺς ῾Ηλιουπολίτας τὸ κωλυθῆναι, καθὸ πάτριον ἦν αὐτοῖς πρότερον, ἐκπορνεύεσθαι παρὰ τοῦ προστυχόντος τὰς ἐνθάδε παρθένους, πρὶν τοῖς μνηστῆρσι συνελθεῖν εἰς γάμον. ὁ γὰρ Κωνσταντῖνος καθελὼν τὸν ἐν ῾Ηλιουπόλει τῆς ᾿Αφροδίτης νεών, τότε πρῶτον παρ' αὐτοῖς ἐκκλησίαν ἐδείματο, καὶ νόμῳ διεκώλυσε τὰς συνήθεις ἐπιτελεῖν πορνείας. 5.10.8 ᾿Αρεθούσιοι δὲ Μᾶρκον τὸν γενόμενον αὐτῶν ἐπίσκοπον, γηραλέον ὄντα, πολιάν τε καὶ βίον αἰδέσιμον, ἐλεεινῶς διεχειρίσαντο. τοῦτον δὲ καὶ πρότερον ἐν ὀργῇ εἶχον· προθυμότερον γὰρ ἢ κατὰ πειθὼ Κωνσταντίου βασιλεύοντος τοὺς ῾Ελληνιστὰς εἰς Χριστιανισμὸν ἐπανῆγε καὶ τὸν παρ' αὐτοῖς 5.10. σεμνότατον καὶ πολυτελέστατον νεὼν καθεῖλεν. ἐπεὶ δὲ μετέπεσεν εἰς ᾿Ιουλιανὸν ἡ ἀρχή, κεκινημένον ἐπ' αὐτὸν τὸν δῆμον ὁρῶν, ἅμα δὲ καὶ κατὰ πρόσταγμα βασιλέως καταδικασθεὶς ἢ τὴν ἀποτίμησιν τοῦ ναοῦ ἐκτῖσαι ἢ τοῦτον ἀνοικοδομῆσαι, λογισάμενος ὡς ἀδύνατον ἑκάτερον, Χριστιανῷ δὲ καὶ 5.10.10 ἄλλως ἀθέμιτον τὸ δεύτερον, μή τί γε δὴ ἱερεῖ, ἔφυγε τὰ πρῶτα· μαθὼν δὲ δι' αὐτὸν κινδυνεύειν πολλούς, ἑλκυσμάτων τε καὶ δικαστηρίων καὶ τῶν ἐν τούτοις πειρᾶσθαι δεινῶν, ἐπανῆλθεν ἀπὸ τῆς φυγῆς καὶ ἐθελοντὴς ὅ τι 5.10.11 βούλοιντο αὐτὸν δρᾶν τῷ πλήθει προσήγαγεν. οἱ δὲ ἐξ ὧν ἔδει πλέον ἐπαινεῖν αὐτὸν ὡς φιλοσόφῳ πρέπουσαν πρᾶξιν ἐπιδειξάμενον, ὑπερπεφρονῆσθαι νομίσαντες πᾶς ὁ δῆμος ἐπ' αὐτὸν ἐχώρησε· καὶ διὰ τῶν ἀγυιῶν εἷλκον ὠθοῦντες καὶ τίλλοντες καὶ ᾗ ἔτυχε τῶν μελῶν ἕκαστος παίοντες· ἐσπουδάζετο δὲ τὸ δρᾶμα ἀνδράσι καὶ γυναιξὶ καὶ πάσῃ ἡλικίᾳ μετὰ προθυμίας καὶ ὀργῆς, ὡς καὶ σπαρτίοις λεπτοῖς τὰ ὦτα αὐτοῦ διατεμεῖν· παῖδες δὲ εἰς διδασκάλους φοιτῶντες παίγνιον ἐποιοῦντο τὸ πρᾶγμα, καὶ μετεωρίζοντες αὐτὸν καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν κυλίοντες ἀντέπεμπόν τε καὶ ἀντεδέχοντο ταῖς γραφίσι 5.10.12 καὶ ἀφειδῶς κατεκέντουν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἅπαν τὸ σῶμα τραυματίας ἐγένετο, ἔτι δὲ ὅμως ἐνέπνεε, μέλιτι καὶ γάρῳ ἀλείψαντες αὐτὸν καὶ σαργάνῃ ἐμβαλόντες (πλέγμα δὲ τοῦτο ὁλόσχοινον) εἰς ὕψος ἦραν. ἡνίκα δὴ λέγεται σφηκῶν καὶ μελισσῶν ἐφιπταμένων αὐτῷ καὶ τὰς σάρκας κατεσθιουσῶν πρὸς τοὺς ᾿Αρεθουσίους εἰπεῖν, ὡς αὐτὸς μὲν ὑψηλὸς εἴη, τοὺς δὲ ταπεινοὺς ὁρᾷ καὶ χαμαὶ ἐρχομένους, καὶ κατὰ τοῦτο ἑαυτῷ τε κἀκείνοις συμβάλλειν ἔσεσθαι 5.10.13 τὰ μετὰ ταῦτα. λόγος δὲ τὸν τότε ὕπαρχον, ῾Ελληνιστὴν μὲν ἐς τὰ μάλιστα ὄντα, γενναῖον δὲ τὸ ἦθος, ὡς καὶ εἰσέτι νῦν τὴν περὶ αὐτοῦ δόξαν κρατεῖν, θαυμάσαντα Μᾶρκον τῆς ἐγκρατείας