Maturus, Sanctus, Attalus and Blandina were chosen to provide the first day’s entertainment. Their tortures, we are told, saved the town the expense of a gladiatorial show. Christians were more novel game and cheaper than hired soldiers, lions and panthers. Blandina was bound all but naked to a pole at the end of the amphitheatre. She was to be at the mercy of the beasts; and the beasts proved more merciful than the yelling savage mob, who crowded tier over tier all around. That day none of them would touch the frail, delicate form that, bound as it was, recalled to the martyrs another form bound too by the Romans on a hill outside Jerusalem. She was reserved for another day, and meanwhile her fortitude gave courage to all. Attalus was a Roman citizen well-known to the people. Hence they called for his torture as for a favourite actor or gladiator. He was forced to walk round the amphitheatre amid the jeers of the spectators, preceded by a placard with the motto “This is Attalus, the Christian.” But the rights of a Roman citizen were not to be outraged with impunity; and so the legate sent Attalus back to prison without torture, there to await the Emperor’s orders. No such rights protected Maturus and Sanctus; their bodies were already each a mass of wounds from their former tortures; and they would be well spent in making a people’s holiday. A file of roughs lashed their naked, lacerated bodies as they passed into the arena. Their eyes fell on the instruments of torture--a gruesome array--along the centre; and then the awful moment came. A sullen growl and a roar from the farther end, and already the beasts were upon them. A thrill of mad excitement ran through the throng above. The beasts sank their teeth in the Christians’ flesh and lapped the Christians’ blood, and many a pagan envied them the feast. But, sure of their prey, they did not devour them at once; they tossed them to and fro in cruel sport and left them for the time. The mob were impatient; they wanted death; and called for the red-hot iron chair. Into this the martyrs were placed and the foul smell of the burnt flesh was incense to the nostrils of the holiday makers. But the Christians would not recant; the beasts would have no more of them; and it was slow sport watching this roasting process; so at a signal from the mob they received the _coup de grace_, the _finale_ of all the people’s pleasures.