Chapter 8
The ChristiansSome twenty miles across the hills south from Aquae Sulis, on an island in the marshes called Glastonia,[12] two travellers arrived from Rome — a young woman and her grandfather, Martha and Paulus. They were followers of a God who had no statue and no temple, a God whose son had been crucified in Galilee forty years before, and whose followers were still persecuted by the representatives of the Roman Empire, though less under Vespasian than under Nero. Martha’s parents and brothers had been thrown to the wild animals to be torn to pieces for the amusement of the vengeful Roman crowds when Nero claimed, without evidence, that it was the Nazarenes who had set fire to Rome. Martha escaped, helped by a family loyal to the State and the state Gods, yet deeply disapprovi
