poor and contemptible in appearance, surpassed the rest. “She was exposed to the beasts raised as it were upon a cross, and so praying most contentedly to God, she inspired the utmost ardour in her fellow combatants, who with the eyes of the body saw in this their sister’s person Him who had been crucified for them in order to persuade those who should believe in Him that whoever suffers for the glory of Christ shall obtain companionship with the living God.”(259) Since the wild beasts refused to touch her, Blandina and the survivors among her fellow-sufferers were remanded to prison, in order that the pleasure of the emperor might be taken, one of them being a Roman citizen. For this persecution had arisen without any command of his, and the punishments were inflicted in virtue of the ordinary law. After an interval, as it would seem, of two months, a rescript was received from Marcus Aurelius which ordered that those who confessed should be punished ignominiously, those who denied, be dismissed. “And so at the time of our great fair, when a vast multitude from the various provinces flock thither, the governor ordered the most blessed martyrs to be brought before his tribunal, exhibiting them to the people as in theatric pomp; and after a last interrogation those who were Roman citizens were beheaded, and the rest given to the wild beasts.”(260) But Blandina, after being every day brought to behold the sufferings of her companions, “the last of all, like a noble mother who had kindled her children to the combat, and sent them forward as conquerors to the king,—was eager to follow them, rejoicing and exulting over her departure, as if invited to a nuptial banquet, not cast before wild beasts. At length, after scourging and tearing and burning, she was put in a net and exposed to the bull. Tossed again and again by him, yet feeling now nothing which was done to her, both from the intensity of hope with which she grasped the rewards of faith, and from her intimate intercourse in prayer with Christ, in the end she had her throat cut, as a victim, while the heathen themselves confessed that never had they seen a woman who had borne so much and so long.”(261)