11
With his breath thus confined, and his body strangled, he said,
12
A great favour thou bestowest upon us, O tyrant, by enabling us to manifest our adherence to the law by means of nobler sufferings.
13
He also being dead, the sixth, quite a youth, was brought out; and on the tyrant asking him whether he would eat and be delivered, he said,
14
I am indeed younger than my brothers, but in understanding I am as old;
15
for having been born and reared unto the same end, we are bound to die also in behalf of the same cause.
16
So that if ye think proper to torment us for not eating the unclean;—torment!
17
As he said this, they brought him to the wheel.
18
Extended upon which, with limbs racked and dislocated, he was gradually roasted from beneath.
19
And having heated sharp spits, they approached them to his back; and having transfixed his sides, they burned away his entrails.
20
And he, while tormented, said, O period good and holy, in which, for the sake of religion, we brethren have been called to the contest of pain, and have not been conquered.
21
For religious understanding, O tyrant, is unconquered.