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Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213 cover

Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213

Chapter 26: Transcriber’s Note
By S. Baring-Gould
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About This Book

Set in a provincial Roman town built around a sacred spring, the narrative opens with a spring festival during which forty-nine flower-crowned girls assemble and fate, not officials, selects one as the votive offering to secure the fountain's continued favor. The story follows the public rituals—the procession, priests and priestesses, music, and incense—and the anxious responses of parents and the chosen girl, portraying tensions between communal obligation and private feeling. Through vivid scene-setting and ceremonial detail, the work examines faith, tradition, chance, and the human costs of maintaining communal rites.

Footnotes

1.
So represented in paintings in the Catacombs. There were two distinct types: the table in the Church and the tomb at the Sepulcher of the Martyr.
2.
St. Clement of Alexandria complained of the dainties provided for the Agape: “The sauces, cakes, sugar-plums, the drink, the delicacies, the games, the sweetmeats, the honey.” The hour of supper with the Romans was about 2 P.M.; that, therefore, was the time for the love-feast to begin.
3.
In the recently-exhumed house of Saints John and Paul, in the Cœlian Hill at Rome, such bottles were discovered in the cellar.
4.
Now Ambroix.
5.
Certain Christians bought substitutes to sacrifice in their room and receive a ticket (libellus) certifying that they had sacrificed. The Church was a little perplexed how to deal with these timorous members, who were termed libellatics.
6.
I employ the term Duumvir for convenience. As already stated, there were four chief magistrates, but two only had criminal jurisdiction.
7.
“Erat et robur, locus in carcere, quo præcipitabatur maleficorum genus, quod ante arcis robustis includebatur.”—Liv. 38, 39.
8.
The prayer is given in the “Apostolic Constitutions,” viii. 37.
9.
The casting into the lowest pit of the robur—sometimes termed the barathrum—was not a rare act of barbarity. Jugurtha perished in that of the Tullianum in Rome. “By Hercules!” said he as he was being lowered into it, “your bath is cold!” S. Ferreolus, of Vienne, was plunged into this horrible place in A.D. 304. He was young, and by diving or by working at the grating he managed to escape much in the manner described above. Thus through the sewer he reached the Rhône, and swam across it. He was, however, recaptured and taken back to Vienne, where he was decapitated. He is commemorated in the diocese of Vienne on September 18th, and is mentioned by Sidonius Apollinaris in the fifth century, and by Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth. S. Gregory, the illuminator, was cast into the barathrum by Tiridates. Theodoret describes martyrs devoured by rats and mice in Persia (“Hist. Eccl.,” v. 39).
10.
This sign is now in the museum.
11.
Fairies, adored at Nemausus.
12.
The incident of the fall of snow occurring at the martyrdom of a virgin saint is no picture of the author’s imagination. It occurred at the passion of S. Eulalia of Merida, in A.D. 303, and is commemorated in the hymn on her by Prudentius.

Transcriber’s Note

Variations in hyphenation or spelling have not been changed.

Changes, which have been made to the text:

page 55, “Nemauscan” changed to “Nemausean”
page 117, “alloted” changed to “allotted”
page 119, “exisiting” changed to “existing”
page 125, comma removed after “Baudillas”
page 278, “adsence” changed to “absence”
page 280, quote mark added before “Executioners”