Ten Years of Strife

Through the whole ten years of the persecution they never left off plotting and making war against one another. The sea could not be sailed, and those who put in to port from anywhere could not escape every kind of outrage: they were racked and torn in their sides and examined under every sort of torture to find out whether they had come from the enemy on the other side, and in the end they were sent to the cross or to the fire. [a] Besides this, shields and breastplates were being made ready, darts and spears and every other kind of military equipment prepared, and warships and weapons for sea battles gathered in every place, and no one could expect anything but wars, with every new day’s onset. After that, famine and plague fell upon them as well; about these we will tell what is needed at the proper time. [c]