“May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily, and not deal with me as with some, whom, out of fear, they have not touched. But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so. Pardon me [in this] I know what is for my benefit. Now I begin to be a disciple. And let no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus Christ. Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.”
(Early Christian Writings)
Ah yez, tearings and breakings and and and well “all the dreadful torments”! How deliciously horrible to anticipate!
+Paul? Well, if that was the purpose of the author of the Letters, he or she failed miserably, I'll give you that. As for the drama of Chapter V of the Letter to the Romans, well death in the arena was a dramatic thing. It was supposed to be from the Romans' pov. I'll speculate that +Ignatius knew that the persecutions were increasing. His co-worker and fellow bishop +Polycarp had already suffered martyrdom in the arena. We know that +Ignatius had written to the Smyrneans about it. In any event, you are of course free tp be;ieve some or all of the letters are spurious. We don't and they form a fundamental part of the rationale of our ecclesiology, though not so much that of the Latins.
Here's a piece by Fr. John Romanides, of blessed memory, on the Letters and the theology of +Ignatius of Antioch. Fr. John was a very conservative Orthodox theologian.
http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.11.en.the_ecclesiology_of_st._ignatius_of_antioch.01.htm