Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/221

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 203 they still retained their superstitious prejudices of sol- chP. diers and peasants. In the general administration of ^VI. the provinces they obeyed the laws which their bene- factor had established ; but they frequently found oc- casions of exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution*^, for which the imprudent zeal of the christians sometimes offered the most specious pre- tences. A sentence of death was executed upon ?ilaxi- milianus, an African youth, who had been produced by his own father before the magistrate as a sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to embrace the profession of a soldier". It could scarcely be ex- pected that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival, that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of his office, and ex- claimed with a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal king, and that he re- nounced for ever the use of carnal weapons and the service of an idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was examined in the city of Tingi, by the president of that part of Mauritania ; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was con- demned and beheaded for the crime of desertion''. Examples of such a nature savour much less of reli- gious persecution than of martial or even civil law : f Eusebius, 1. viii. c. 4. c. 17. He limits the number of military martyrs by a remarkable expression, {oTravioig tovtwv eig irov Kai devTspog,) of ■which neither his Latin nor French translator have rendered the energy. Notwithstanding the authority of Eusebius, and the silence of Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, etc. it has been long believed, that the The- baean legion, consisting of six thousand christians, suffered martyrdom, by the order of Maximian, in the valley of the Penine Alps. The story was first published about the middle of the fiftli century, by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who received it from certain persons who received it from Isaac bishop of Geneva, who is said to have received it from Tiieodore bishop of Octodurum. 'i'he abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a rich monument of the credulity ofSigismond king of Burgundy. See an excellent dissertation in the thirty-sixth volume of the Bibliotheque Raisonnee, p. 427 — 454, s See the Acta Sincera, p. 299. The accounts of his martyrdom, and of that of Marcellus, bearevery mark of truth and authenticity. ^ Acta Sincera, p. 302.