XX PREFACE.
and set them free on the condition that they did not go to his native city and inform his mother and sisters and his betrothed of his mtention to die for Christ’s sake. Three of his servants, Pasikrates, Lukios and Kirennios refus- ed to forsake their master, and having hired a house at Tyre, they witnessed his strife and death, Having stripped himself of all he possessed, even to his very clothes,
he went into the presence of the governor Dadianus and
proclaimed boldly that he was a Christian, Dadianus
asked him questions about his birth, and parentage, and
position in this world, adjuring him by the name of Christ
to tell him the whole of his history. When Dadianus
learned from George that he was of noble birth, and had
served in the imperial army with considerable distinction,
he endeavoured to turn him aside from his fatal decision:
and admiring his beautiful form and handsome face h
tried to allure him into further service by promises of ad:
vancement in the empire and great rewards. George
rejected his offers with scorn, and began to revile the im-
perial gods, pointing out at the same time how abominably
polluted they were as compared with Peter, Hljah, the
Virgin Mary, and other saints. The patience of Dadianns
being at last tired ont by George's resistance he ordered
him to be stripped naked by the attendants and thrown
upon the wooden horse, or rack, to wrench his bones from
their sockets; and they forced his feet into iron boots and
drove nails into them; they put a weight of six hundred
pounds upon him so that be burst asunder; they broke im
his head with iron bars; they scraped him with scrapers,
