The Roman Road on two sides of a square from Ephesus east to Antioch and from Antioch south to Jerusalem to this day has legends of what happened to her in these years. Some said she had escaped with the Lady Trefina dressed as a page boy. Others said she had joined Paul and Timothy at Derbe and Lystra. Others knew she had lived hidden in caves between Antioch and Daphne Gardens. About all that is authentic that can be gathered of this period is that the Lady Trefina adopted her in place of the dead daughter and left her a substantial fortune. Paul had gone to Rome, where Nero had beheaded him when he could not crucify a Roman citizen. Peter had come up from Babylon to take Paul’s place in Rome, hurrying over the same Roman Road from the Desert of the East and had been crucified in Rome, because he was not a Roman citizen. Nero, himself, had suicided. From Antioch to Damascus and Jerusalem, the Roman Road was now yearly packed with Imperial troops, for Titus, the Emperor Vespasian’s son, had taken the Holy City, and, except for the Herod Towers on the west, left not a stone standing of the Jewish capital. The Christian Sect, though hated by the Jews, had been driven by the war from Antioch to Ephesus, where they gathered strength each day; and in an era of universal persecution and massacre, Thecla was forgotten. She was now only one of countless martyrs to a despised faith; and the faith suffered less on the Roman Road than in the Imperial City or Judea, because these Greek trade cities of Asia Minor had been granted independent laws, provided they kept fealty to Rome. The only danger to them was the Emperor worship, which Rome had set up in every Greek temple—statues of Roman conquerors, side by side with Greek deities for worship and homage to unify the Empire. Some philosophers declared openly this was the worship of the Beast foretold in prophecy of Greek sibyl and Hebrew seer. Others said the name in whispers and bided their time for Rome’s fall from a pinnacle of intoxicated power. Again it was the month of September. Grapes hung heavy on the vineyards lining the road. The olive groves alone shone brilliant green in the drought. The cactus hedges stood withered and gaunt, like ragged ghosts flinging wild arms out in the blue haze of late summer. On the broad Roman Road the dust was a yellow curse to man and beast, but at dusk and dawn it was a crimson glory against an amber skyline.