around their necks to show that they were ready to go to prison. While efforts were made to persuade them to follow the example of others who had already performed the sacrifice, the three were led through the streets to the agora." The author of the Passio in the mid-third century says the upper galleries of the square were packed with Greeks, Hebrews and women who had the day off because of the Grand Shabbat. Pionius responds to the crowd's taunting by reminding the Greeks that Homer never considered it pious to rejoice at another losing his life. He reminds the Jews of Moses and Solomon, who preach offering aid to the enemy and not rejoicing at his fate. He accuses them of showing no compassion by the fact of being human beings or the victims of injustice themselves. He follows with a series of rhetorical questions: "To whom have we done wrong? Have we perchance murdered someone? Or, do we persecute anyone? Or have we obliged anyone to venerate idols?" Pionius is tortured, repeatedly asked, "Will you sacrifice?" and repeatedly declines, and is eventually sentenced to be burned alive. Historicity Daniel Boyarin describes the historical accuracy of the Martyrdom of Pionius as "highly contested" among scholars, with varying levels of support among scholars for accuracy of its historical details. Jan Kozlowski, following L. Robert, has argued that various details of the text indicate that it was written in the third century AD, not long after the Decian persecution. Robin Lane Fox has also argued strongly for the reliability of the account, describing it as 'a text of rare authority, true to its first contemporary form'. Bart Ehrman argues that the narrative shows traces of "literary license, if not wholesale invention" in the way that it echoes the earlier story of Polycarp, who died in 155 AD. Theologian Arthur Cushman McGiffert says "Ruinart's Acta Martyrum Sincera is a Latin narrative of the martyrdom of Pionius which appears to be substantially the same as the document which Eusebius used in the Greek. The account bears all the marks of genuineness, and may be regarded as trustworthy, at least on the main points." Historian William Tabbernee reports Pionius as having two trials, the first under Polemon, the temple-verger at Smyrna, and the second under Julius Proculus Quintilianus. McGiffert says: "The Life of Polycarp which purports to have been written by Pionius, is