martyrdom · 165 · Rome
Eusebius gives it a chapter to itself, headed that Justin the philosopher preaches the word of Christ in Rome and suffers martyrdom, and says it happened in consequence of a plot laid against him by Crescens, a philosopher who emulated the life and manners of the Cynics, after Justin had frequently refuted him in public discussions. The extraordinary part is that Justin had written it down in advance: I too, therefore, expect to be plotted against and put in the stocks by some one of those whom I have named, or perhaps by Crescens, that unphilosophical and vainglorious man. Eusebius's own translator notes that this proves Crescens plotted and not that the plot succeeded, and the profile does not harden it. The trial itself — before Junius Rusticus, prefect of the city, with six companions, and the sentence of scourging and beheading — comes from a third-century Acta of Justin, one of the soberest martyr-acts that survives. This dataset does not hold that text and does not cite it; it is named here so a reader knows where the courtroom detail comes from and where it does not.
To be rid of a man who had beaten a rival philosopher in public argument once too often.
A death he had predicted in writing, and the name of the man he expected to arrange it.