Every mode of torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as city, was polluted with many bloody executions.

[155] But as it was found impossible to extort any discovery of this mysterious transaction, it seems incumbent on us either to presume the innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the sufferers.
A few days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself from Nicomedia, declaring, that if he delayed his departure from that devoted palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the rage of the Christians.
The ecclesiastical historians, from whom alone we derive a partial and imperfect knowledge of this persecution, are at a loss how to account for the fears and dangers of the emperors.

Two of these writers, a prince and a rhetorician, were eye-witnesses of the fire of Nicomedia.
The one ascribes it to lightning, and the divine wrath; the other affirms, that it was kindled by the malice of Galerius himself.

[156] [Footnote 155: Lactantius de M.P.c.

13, 14.