If it was extraordinary that a monument should be erected at Rome to persons thus treated, it was no less so that a high priest should concern himself with the inscription; and further, that this Roman priest should make a Greek epitaph for them. But what is still more strange is that it is pretended that this word biotanates signifies the seven tortured. Biotanates is a fabricated word, which one does not meet with in any author; and this signification can only be given to it by a play upon words, falsely using the word "thenon." There is scarcely any fable worse constructed. The writers of legends knew how to lie, but none of them knew how to lie skilfully. The learned Lacroze, librarian to Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, observed: "I know not whether Ruinart is sincere, but I am afraid he is silly." _2. Of St. Felicita And Seven More Children._ It is from Surius that this legend is taken. This Surius is rather notorious for his absurdities. He was a monk of the sixteenth century, who writes about the martyrs of the second as if he had been present. He pretends that that wicked man, that tyrant, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius, ordered the prefect of Rome to institute a process against St. Felicita, to have her and her seven children put to death, because there was a rumor that she was a Christian. The prefect held his tribunal in the Campus Martius, which, however, was at that time used only for the reviewing of troops; and the first thing the prefect did was to cause a blow to be given her in full assembly. The long discourses of the magistrates and the accused are worthy of the historian. He finishes by putting the seven brothers to death by different punishments, like the seven children of St. Symphorosia. This is only a duplicate affair. But as for St. Felicita, he leaves her there, and does not say another word about her. _3. Of Saint Polycarp._ Eusebius relates that St. Polycarp, being informed in a dream that he should be burned in three days, made it known to his friends. The legend-maker adds that the lieutenant of police at Smyrna, whose name was Herodius, had him seized by his archers; that he was abandoned to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre; that the sky opened, and a heavenly voice cried to him: "Be of good courage, Polycarp"; that the hour of letting loose the lions in the amphitheatre having passed, the people went about collecting wood from all the houses to burn him with; that the saint addressed himself to the God of the "archangels"--although the word archangel was not then known--that the flames formed themselves round him into a triumphal arch without touching him; that his body had the smell of baked bread; but that, having resisted the fire, he could not preserve himself against a sabre-cut; that his blood put out the burning pile, and that there sprung from it a dove which flew straight to heaven. To which planet is not precisely known. _4. Of Saint Ptolomais._