Of the ecclesiastical rulers who bore witness in the notable cities, let the first to be proclaimed by us, upon the monuments of the godly, as a martyr of the kingdom of Christ, be Anthimus, bishop of the city of the Nicomedians, who was beheaded.
And of the martyrs at Antioch, the best in all his life, Lucian, a presbyter of the parish there, who at Nicomedia, the emperor himself being present, proclaimed the heavenly kingdom of Christ, first by word through a defence, and then also by deeds.
And of the martyrs in Phoenicia, the most notable would be those in all things beloved of God, the shepherds of the rational flocks of Christ: Tyrannion, bishop of the church at Tyre; Zenobius, a presbyter of the church at Sidon; and further Silvanus, bishop of the churches about Emesa.
But the last, becoming food for wild beasts at Emesa itself, along with others, was taken up into the choirs of martyrs; while both of those at Antioch glorified the word of God through their endurance unto death—the one, the bishop, being delivered to the depths of the sea; the other, Zenobius, that best of physicians, dying bravely amid the tortures applied to his sides.
And of the martyrs in Palestine, Silvanus, bishop of the churches about Gaza, was beheaded at the copper mines in Phaeno, together with others, one short of forty in number; and there too the Egyptian bishops Peleus and Nilus, with others, endured the end by fire.
And let the great glory of the parish of Caesarea among these be remembered by us—Pamphilus, a presbyter, the most marvellous of those in our day, the excellence of whose deeds of valour we have recorded at the fitting time.
And of those who were gloriously perfected at Alexandria and throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid, let Peter first be recorded, bishop of Alexandria itself, a certain divine treasure among the teachers of the godliness in Christ; and of the presbyters with him, Faustus and Dius and Ammonius, perfect martyrs of Christ; and Phileas and Hesychius and Pachymius and Theodorus, bishops of the churches about Egypt; and besides these, countless other illustrious men, who are remembered by the parishes of their own region and place—of whom, while they contended throughout the whole world for the sake of piety toward the Deity, to hand down their struggles in writing, and to relate accurately each of the things that befell them, is not our part, but would be proper to those who took in the events by sight. Those, however, at whom I myself was present, I shall make known to those who come after us in another writing.
But in the present account, I shall append to what has been said the recantation of the things done concerning us, and the things that befell from the beginning of the persecution, as being most useful to those who shall read.
Now the things before the war against us, in the times when the disposition of the Roman government toward us was friendly and peaceful—what abundance of good things and what prosperity it was deemed worthy of, what word could suffice to relate? Seeing that even those who chiefly held the universal rule, having completed the tenth and twentieth anniversaries of their reign, spent their time in feasts and festivals, in most cheerful banquets and gladness, with all settled peace.
And while their authority was thus unhindered in its increase and advancing day by day to greatness, they suddenly changed their peace toward us and stirred up a truceless war; but the second year of such a movement had not yet been fulfilled by them, when a certain revolution that came about concerning the whole government overturned all affairs.
For when an inauspicious disease fell upon the foremost of the rulers we have mentioned, by which even the faculties of his mind were brought to derangement, he, together with him who held the second place after him, took up the common and private life. And not yet had this been done by him in this manner, when the whole government was divided in two—a thing not handed down to memory as having happened at any other time before of old.
And after no very long time had intervened, the emperor Constantius, who throughout his whole life disposed himself most gently and most kindly toward his subjects, and most affectionately toward the divine word, leaving behind a true son, Constantine, as emperor and Augustus in his stead, ended his life by the common law of nature; and he was the first to be proclaimed among the gods by them, deemed worthy after death of every honour that could be owed to an emperor—the most kindly and gentle of emperors.
He alone of those in our day, having carried through the whole time of his rule in a manner worthy of the sovereignty, and having shown himself in all other respects most gracious and most beneficent to all, and having in no way taken part in the war against us, but having even kept unharmed and unmolested the God-fearing ones under him, neither pulling down the houses of the churches nor devising anything else new against us, received a glorious and thrice-blessed end of life, having alone of all, in the course of his reign, died graciously and gloriously, leaving a true son as his successor, in all things most temperate and most godly.
His son Constantine, immediately at his outset, being proclaimed a most perfect emperor and Augustus by the armies, and, long before these, by God Himself, the King of all, set himself up as an emulator of his father's piety toward our word. Such, then, was this man. And after these, Licinius, by the common vote of the rulers, was declared emperor and Augustus.
These things grievously vexed Maximin, who up to that time was still styled merely Caesar above all the rest. Being therefore in the highest degree tyrannical, he seized the dignity for himself, and became an Augustus, made such by his own self. Meanwhile, he who, after his abdication, was shown to have been taken up again, being caught contriving a device of death against Constantine, came to his end by a most shameful death. And he was the first whose honorific inscriptions, statues, and all such things as are customarily set up by way of dedication, were taken down as those of an unholy and most impious man.