" Though persuaded that the coiiflngration was the crime of Nero, many serious Romans saw in this coup a means of delivering "the city fi-om an intolerable pest. Tacitus, notwithstanding some qualms of pity, was of this opinion ; and as to Suetonius, he reckons among the meritorious acts of Nero the punishment which he had inflicted on the partisans of a new and mischievous superstition. Yet these punishments were something ahsolntely frightful. Never before had such retinenients of cruelty been wit- nessed. Almost all the Christians who were arrested were of the humble class ; and the usual puuishnieut of
such unfortunates, when treason or sacrilege was laid to their charge, was to be thrown to wild beasts, or to be burned alive in the amphitheatre, with an addition of cruel scourgings. One of the most hideous characteristics of Roman manners was that they converted punishments into a fete, and public executions into a public entertain- ment. Persia, in moments of fanaticism and terror, had used frightful forms of torture ; and on more than one oc- casion had tasted a sombre kind of pleasure in inflicting them. But never before the establishment of Roman do- minion had these horrors been made a public diversion, a subject for peals of laughter and applause. The amphi- theatres had become the regular places of execution, and the tribunals of justice furnished materials for the spoj-t. The roads that converged to Rome were crowded with Ihe criminals of the whole world, to provide victims for the circus and amusement for the populace. . . . But, this time, to the barbarity of the executioner was added a touch of derision. The victims were reserved for a fete, to which (no doubt) an expiatory character was attached. Roman annals had known few days so extraordinary. The hidu,s matiitimis, usually devoted to combats of ani- mals, saw to-day an unheard-of procession. The con- demned persons, sewn up in skins of wild beasts, were thrust out into the arena to be torn by dogs ; others were crucified; others again were clothed in tunics dipped in oil, pitch, or rosin, and then found themselves attached to stakes, and reserved to illuminate the nocturnal festivities. When dusk came on, these living torches were set ou fire. Nero oflered for the spectacle his magnificent gardens be- yond the Tiber, on the site of the niodern Borgo and in the precincts of the Church of St. Peter" (p. 163-1C5).
But physical suffering was not enough to satisfy the infernal malice of the heathen world against these pure and patient servants of the Crucified One. INIoral tor- tures, mental anguish, brutal and Satanic invasions of all that a Christian holds most sacred and most invio- lable, must be undergone by them ere the baptism of blood was complete, ere the infant Church could be (like her Master) "made perfect through sufferings." The pen almost refuses to write, the brain almost refuses to conceive, the atrocities which followed. The heart and conscience of the reader can do no more, even noAv at the distance of 1800 years, than cry to heaven, with the souls of the slain under the Apocalyptic altar, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge this blood on them that dwell on the earth ?" (Rev. vi, 10).
"Women, and even virgins, were mixed up with these horrible sports; and nameless indignities were inflicted (m them, as part of the festivities. It had become an es- tablished usage under Nero to force condemned persons to play in the am])hitheatre mythological scenes which in- volved at least the death of the actor. These hideous operas, to which the application of ingenious mechanism lent an astonishing eflect, were the novelties of the day. Greece would indeed have recoiled with surprise had such attempts been suggested to her, to supplement ses- thetics by ferocity, to make torture minister to art ! The unhappy wretch was introduced into the arena ricldy dressed as a god or a hero destined to death. He then represented by his sufl'erin'js some tragic scene of pagan myth, ctnisecrated by the wiiks of jc ets and sculptors. Sometimes it was Hercules, trmitic .iinl burning on Mount (Eta. and madly tearing I'roni hi? llr.-li the tunic of blazing pitch. Sometimes it was ()]))heu:^ torn in pieces by a bear, Dsedalus thrown from heaven and devoured by beasts, Pasiphae undergoing the attacks of the bull, or Attys put to death. . . . Nero, no d<mbt, was i)resent at thet^e spec- tacles. As he was nearsighted, he used to wear a concave emerald in his eye to serve as an eye-glas.-- fn- watching the combats of gladiators. He loved to imike a parade of his knowledge as a connoisseur in sculpture. . . . \\'orthyofa connoisseur like him must have been the plastic foi n.s and the colors presented by a human frame palpitatini: under the teeth of beasts; by a poor timid maiden \viili cliasie gestures veiling her nudity, and then tofsed by a bull and iorn in pieces on the pebbles of the arena ! Yes, he was there, in the front rank, on the podium, supported by vestals and curule magistrates" (p. 157-1 T3).
So great were the sufferings of the tormented that even the pagan historian is forced to confess that "pity arose for the guilty, though they deser\-td the severest punishment, since they were put to death, not for the public good, hut to gratify the cruelty of one ma?i^' (A n- nales, xv, 44). But even the cruelty of Nero is not gen- erally adjudged sufficient groinid for all these executions, and it is believed by some that the powerful Poppa?a Sa- bina, proved by Josephus {Ant. xx, 8) to have been a convert to Judaism, mainly instigated the severity of this persecution. It is thought by some that the apostle