fled to the Turks, and he remained with them from then on; the others
were captured. Some of the prisoners were challenged about their
faith, and ordered to renounce Christ, but they proclaimed Christ
with steady heart and voice, and were decapitated.

And now Christ will have new honors, like those he had long ago,
ornamenting our age with new martyrs. How fragrant are the laurels
on the brows of those who prepare to offer their throats to the swift
blade! I shall call them happy who endure those few moments: their
firm faith has brought them eternal life. Now the least of us need
despair no longer, having dared what can scarcely be imitated.[106]

The Turks divided up among themselves some of the captives, whose
lives they had spared, or rather reserved for a more painful death,
and submitted them to dismal servitude at the hands of cruel masters.
Some were exposed in public, like targets, and were pierced by
arrows; others were given away as gifts, while others were sold
outright. Those to whom they were given took them back to their own
homes, bringing some of them to the region called Khorasan, and
others to the city of Antioch, where they would endure wretched
slavery under the worst masters imaginable.

They underwent a torture much longer than that endured by those whose
heads were severed swiftly by the sword. A cruel master drives them,
subjecting them to painful labor; everywhere the pious man serves the
ungrateful man. The conscientious worker is flogged; the faithful
man, who performs eagerly and competently, is punished. What he sees,
what he hears, what he does during the day, because he resists doing
evil, becomes foul torture. I have no doubt that their suffering was
more excruciating than three days of torture on the rack.[107]