‘The Martyrdom of Saint Cassian’: A Poem by Joseph S. Salemi

The Martyrdom of Saint Cassian

St. Cassian of Imola (Forum Cornelii) was a schoolteacher
killed by his own pupils during one of the anti-Christian
persecutions carried out by imperial Rome. His young
students were encouraged to stab him to death slowly with
their writing styli. (cf. Prudentius, Peristephanon IX)

They never liked him, with his birchen switch—
Its stinging terror made poor students twitch.
They loathed it when he called them to recite,
Or made them take their styli up and write
A verbal conjugation in all tenses
Or how one word had several different senses.
It irked them when declension of a noun,
Mismanaged, summoned up his scowling frown—
Cassian at his lectern held full sway:
Grammaticus severus, verbum Dei.

Yes, he was a Christian, that they knew—
It hardly eased the tasks they had to do.
Rhetoric and grammar, syntax, rules…
All the minutiae of Roman schools
Lay as a heavy sentence on the boys
Who, like all children, lusted for the noise
Of play, diversion, frolics, games, and fun
They’d turn to when the dreary lesson’s done.
And so, when persecution raised its head,
The boys resolved to strike their teacher dead.

The Emperor’s edict set their anger free:
The Christians are our targets! With pure glee
They took their styli not to write, but pierce
The flesh of Cassian with a fury fierce.
But they were children, and without the strength
That grown men have—their styli went the length
Of a bare inch, and not enough to kill.
These baby stabs, though shallow, served to spill
His blood in trickles rather than a flow,
And death was long, excruciating, slow.

The plethora of methods Hell affords!
Pen-pricks make martyrs just as well as swords.

St. Cassian: the patron saint of the Italian city of Imola. His statue is always that of a scholar tied to a stone pillar, his body pierced with dozens of small styli, just as St. Sebastian is similarly shown at a pillar, but pierced with arrows. I once suggested that Cassian’s statue should be set up in every single teachers’ lounge, as a warning.

Grammaticus severus, verbum Dei: a strict teacher is the word of God.

When persecution raised its head: Cassian was killed some time in the latter half of the fourth century, probably in one of the persecutions by the Emperor Julian.

Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide.  He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.