Timokles hesitated an instant, then hurried on: "The Christians were to die in the amphitheatre of Carthage.

At the gate of the amphitheatre, the guards offered the men among the Christians the red mantle of the priests of Saturn, and offered the women the fillet worn by the priestesses of Ceres.

But the Christians refused.

'We have come here,' they said, 'of our own free will, that we might not be deprived of our freedom.

We have forfeited our lives in order to be delivered from doing such things.' Even the heathen could see the justice of this, and the Christians were not compelled to wear the things.