And Galen further relates, in the first discourse of the work known as On the Ethics of the Soul, that during the reign of King Commodus there lived a man called Paul. Commodus sought to kill him, so Paul fled. He had two young attendants; the king arrested them, beat them, and demanded that they lead him to their master. Out of nobility, pride, and unwavering loyalty, they refused, so he put them to death.
Galen also notes that the interval from Alexander to Paul was five hundred and sixteen years, and that these events took place in the ninth year of Commodus Caesar’s rule. Such is Galen’s account.
He adds that the affair likewise occurred in the days of the sage Democritus.
I say: This span exceeds what that Saʿīd has recorded, for he reckons less than two hundred years from the Messiah to this point; rather, he counts only one hundred and twenty-three years up to the destruction. Mention of Democritus has already appeared earlier.