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IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 33
supreme moment, when the mangling of his limbs and the crunching of
his bones shall at length confer upon him the coveted honour of discipleship
{Rom. 4, 5).
It is clear from his mode of punishment that he was not a Roman
citizen. As a Roman citizen, he would have been spared the worst
horrors of the amphitheatre, and would, like S. Paul according to the
ancient tradition, or like those martyrs of Vienne and Lyons of whom
we read, have been beheaded by the sword'. If elsewhere he mentions,
as possibilities which he was prepared to meet, ' the fire, the sword, the
wild beasts' {Sniyrn. 4; comp. Rom. 5),
if he adds, 'nigh to the sword
nigh to God, encircled by wild beasts encircled by God,' the fire is
only mentioned as an alternative which might have been his fate, as it
was Polycarp's afterwards, and the sword which he contemplates
is not
the guillotine of the executioner, but the knife of the 'confector,' who
would be ready at hand to give him the coup de grace in case the wild
beasts did their work imperfectly.
Thus condemned to the wild beasts, he sets out on his journey
Romeward in the custody of a ' maniple ' or company of ten soldiers
{Rom. 5). Of the earlier part of his route we have no notice direct or
indirect. It is not improbable that he would take ship at Seleucia, the
port town of Antioch, and sail thence to some harbour on the Cilician
or Pamphylian coast (see 11. p. 211). From this point onward he must
have travelled across the continent of Asia Minor, if indeed his whole
journey from Antioch to Smyrna was not performed by land^. His
route would be determined mainly by the duties of his guards; for the
custody of this one prisoner can only have formed a small part of the
functions assigned to them on this long journey. Not improbably they
were charged with gathering up other prisoners on their route through
Asia Minor ;
for the silence of Ignatius about any such fellow-captives
is not a proof, or even a presumption, that there were none. It will be
seen presently that, at all events after they reached Europe, he was
joined by others who, like himself, were travelling Romeward to seek
the crown of martyrdom.
The earliest point at which we are able to determine his route
is in the heart of Asia Minor. Near
with any degree of probability
to the junction of the Lycus and the Maeander,
the road which
^
For S. Paul see TertuU. Scorp. 15 preserved in Euseb. H. E. v. 1% 43 oVot
'Tunc Paulus civitatis Romanae conse- yJkv idoKow -n-oXiTeiav 'Fufiaiojv kaxw^vai,
quitur nativitatem, cum illic martyrii re- tovtwv airiTeixve ras Ke(paKa.s /c.r.X.
nascitur - generositate'; for the martyrs of The alternative routes are exhibited
Vienne and Lyons, the original document in the map
at the end of this volume.
IGN. I.
3