CHAPTER XXXIV

HOW THE WIFE OF A PREFECT SLEW HERSELF TO PRESERVE HER CHASTITY

Now a certain woman, wife of one of the senators who held the authority of Prefect in the city, when she understood that those who ministered to the tyrant’s lusts were standing before her house (she was a Christian), and knew that her husband through fear had bidden them take her and lead her away, begged a short space of time for arraying herself in her usual dress, and entered her chamber. There, being left alone, she sheathed a sword in her own breast, and immediately expired, leaving indeed her dead body to her conductors, but declaring to all mankind, both to present and future generations, by an act which spoke louder than any words, that the chastity for which Christians are famed is alone invincible and not to be destroyed. Such was the conduct displayed by this woman.