Throughout the whole ten-year period of the persecution, there was no respite for them from plotting and from war against one another. For the sea was not to be sailed, nor was it possible for those who put in from anywhere not to be subjected to all maltreatments—racked and torn in the sides, and examined under tortures of every kind, lest perchance they might be coming from the enemies on the opposite side, and at last subjected to crosses or to the punishment by fire.
Besides these things, preparations of shields and breastplates, the readying of arrows and spears and the rest of the warlike array, and of triremes and of weapons for sea-battle, were being made ready in every place, nor was there anything else for anyone to expect but the onset of enemies any day. And upon these things there fell afterward both famine and pestilence, concerning which we shall relate the necessary matters at the fitting time.