AD BESTIAS. - Among the Romans, damnatio or datio ad b. was the penalty inflicted on parricides, murderers, seditionists, arsonists, and sometimes prisoners of war. This penalty was often applied to Christians. Tertullian (Apol. 40), St Cyprian (sp. 55), Eusebius (Hist. eccles. IV, 15) attest that the cry was repeatedly heard: christiani ad leonem.
One of the most illustrious martyrs is St Ignatius of Antioch
(v.) in 107, whose words are famous: “I am God’s wheat; may I be ground by the teeth of wild beasts in order to become pure bread” (Epist. ad Rom. IV, 1, 2). Also to be remembered are: the martyrs of Lyon (v.) in 177 (the deacon Saturus, Maturus, Attalus, Sanctus, Blandina), who appeared fearless in the arena, “bearing on their faces a majesty that transfigured them” (Eusebius, Hist. eccles., VI, 1, 3-4), an evident manifestation of divine assistance; the martyrs Saturus, Revocatus, Perpetua, Felicitas, and Carthage, whose trial records have been preserved in authentic form; the martyr Rutilius at Adrumetum, mentioned by Tertullian (De Fuga in persec. 5).