[141]The two Macriani were defeated and slain by Aureolus, another usurper, in Illyricum, and Quietus was put to death in the East.
[142]Dionysius is still speaking of Macrianus, who had incited Valerian to attack the Persians, and then had himself attacked Gallienus and tried to usurp the throne.
[143]Is. xlii. 9, but Dionysius has substituted, for the last phrase, a phrase from xliii. 19. The original prophecy applies to the triumph of Cyrus and the conversion of the world to the worship of Jehovah. Its application in the text strikes us to-day as too fanciful.
[144]Whether Gallienus himself was really a Christian is very doubtful, but his wife, Cornelia Salonina, seems to have been.
[145]This is a very obscure calculation, but the upshot of it may be as follows: Gallienus was associated with his father Valerian as Emperor seven years (253-60), then Macrianus usurped the power (in Egypt) for one year, or rather more; thus Gallienus regained the power in his ninth year (_i. e._ after midsummer 261). Gallienus’s original Edict of Peace was issued in Oct. 260, but the Rescript applying it to Egypt was delayed for some time. The Easter festival for which this letter was written, therefore, must have been that of 262.
[148]I have translated the Berlin editor’s reading here, as being the least unsatisfactory of those proposed. Others give a text which may be rendered: “I would this were all: for the things that befell us before drove us into many grievous troubles.” But the exact meaning is doubtful, however we take it.
[149]This epithet for martyrs has already occurred on p. 64.
[150]This is none other than a quotation from Pericles’s speech about the plague at Athens in Thucyd. ii. 64, though in Dionysius’s original phrase it sounds as if he meant some local minor historian.
[151]The word Dionysius uses here is the same as S. Paul, uses (1 Cor. iv. 13: περίψηµα, offscouring). It is said to have been used at Athens of the human scapegoats thrown into the river in time of famine: “Be thou my expiation (περίψηµα).” Elsewhere it seems to have degenerated into a sort of extravagant compliment: “I am your humble servant (περίψηµα).” Dionysius suggests it might regain its more serious meaning in the present case.