Sophia’s Visions, Part 17. Christians under Rome: Pliny and Trajan, Perpetua’s diary, Decius’s certificates of sacrifice from Egypt, Diocletian’s Great Persecution, and the debate over what really happened. A C1 English lesson on discourse markers, with a gamebook.
Alexandria · the 754th year since the founding of Rome · 1 CE
Sophia’s Visions, Part 17 · Discourse markers for argument: admittedly, that said, in fact, as a result · C1
Think first. Why might a government care whether its people performed a small religious ritual? What was it really asking for?
While you read, notice how Sophia builds an argument step by step, with words like admittedly, in fact and that said.
Philo: “It was the feast of Augustus, and the whole city was burning incense. We were not. Read what happened.”
The great temple of Caesar stood by the harbour, with two tall obelisks of Egypt in front of it, and on the emperor’s birthday the whole of Alexandria came to burn incense before his statue. Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Syrians: everyone took a pinch from the bowl, dropped it on the coals, and said a prayer for the emperor’s health.
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