A Rich Man's Martyrdom

Qualiter autem Adrumentinae civitatis civem Victorianum, tunc proconsulem Carthaginis, praedicem, nescio, deficientibus verbis. Quo in Africae partibus nullus ditior fuit, qui etiam apud impium regem pro rebus semper sibi comissis fidelissimus habebatur. Mandatur ei a rege familiariter, diciturque quod eum habiturus esset prae omnibus domesticum, si ejus precepto facilem commodasset assensum. Sed ille vir Dei missis ad se tale dedit cum fiducia magna responsum: Securus ego sum de Christo Deo et Domino meo. Haec regi dicatis: Subrigat ignibus, adigat bestiis, excruciet generibus omnium tormentorum. Si consensero, frustra sum in Ecclesia catholica baptizatus. Nam si haec praesens vita sola fuisset, et aliam, quae vere est, non speraremus aeternam, nec ita facerem ut ad modicum atque temporaliter gloriarer, et ingratus existerem ei qui suam fidem mihi contulit, creditori. Ad quod tyrannus excitatus, quantorum temporum, et quantis eum afflixit peoneis, humanus sermo non poterit explicare. Qui tripudians in Domino, feliciterque consummans, martyrialem coronam accepit. Victor Vitensis, Historia Persecutionis Africae Provinciae, Liber V  Migne PL 58 241

Likewise I do not know, lacking the words, how to commend Victorian a citizen of the city of Hadrumetum and then proconsul of Carthage. No one in Africa was richer than him, to whom even the business of the impious king Huneric was faithfully committed. He was commanded by the king to be more closely associated, and he said that he would be preferred over all his servants, if to his command he acceded with easy assent. 1 But that man of God, giving attention to himself, gave this response of great faith: 'Secure I am with Christ and my Lord. Say this to the king: stoke fires, rouse beasts, torment with every kind of torture. If I consent, vainly I have been baptised in the Catholic church. For if there were only this present life, and another eternal one, which truly is, we did not hope for, not thus it would be that I glorying in a mediocre and temporal glory would live ungrateful to him who bestowed his own faith on me, to whom I am indebted.' By this the tyrant was enraged and over a great time afflicted him with many punishments, such that human speech is not able to recount it. He who, exulting in the Lord, happily reaching his end, received the crown of martyrdom. Victor Vitensis, History of the Persecution of the African Province, from Book 5 1 To adopt Arianism