1.
The persecution with us did not commence with the imperial edict, but preceded it by a whole year. And a certain prophet and poet, an enemy to this city, 1 whatever else he was, had previously roused and exasperated against us the masses of the heathen, inflaming them anew with the fires of their native superstition. Excited by him, and finding full liberty for the perpetration of wickedness, they reckoned this the only piety and service to their demons, 2 namely, our slaughter.
-
kai phthasas ho kakon, etc. Pearson, Annales Cyprian. ad ann., 249 § 1, renders it rather thus: "et praevertens malorum huic urbi vates et auctor, quisquis ille fuit, commovit," etc. ↩
-
eusebeian ten threskeian daimonon. Valesius thinks the last three words in the text ( = service to their demons) an interpolation by some scholiast. [Note threskeian = cultus, James i. 27.] ↩
