sion in their favour.1 The bare punishments—crucifixion, burning” at the stake, and death by wild beasts—were right and proper. But
the people to whom Nero threw open his gardens, in order that they
might witness such sights, found Nero himself among them dressed
in the garb of a charioteer2—the ancient equivalent of a jockey. If
the Christians were really magicians, as their punishments implied,*
and their stories of healings may have suggested, the situation was
too serious for such buffoonery. Nero’s conduct was enough to dis-
credit his plea of reasons of state.
It is clear, then, that Christians, who confessed their Christianity or were denounced as Christians by such confessors, were put to death by Nero after the great fire of Rome in Α.Ρ. 64. It was alleged that they were incendiaries or magicians, but these allegations were not proven. The reference to the execution of the founder of the sect suggests that they were, in accordance with that precedent, liable to capital punishment in Rome or in the provinces.
Suetonius records that under Nero many practices were severely punished and prohibited and many others set up. No food was henceforth to be sold in the cook shops (for example) except vege- tables ; and punishments were inflicted upon the Christians—a_ kind of men who embraced a new and maleficent superstition.+4
The natural inference that Nero’s action in the matter of the Christians formed a precedent which was followed generally and in the provinces unless further regulations were introduced by himself or his successors, is probable in the nature of the case, and it is expressly asserted by Sulpicius Severus, who follows Tacitus, and may have known parts of his Annals which are no longer extant. This, he says, was the beginning of the savage treatment of the Christians.
1 Annals: “ pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti, laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus affixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur... Unde. . . miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utili- tate publica sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur.”
* [bid. : ‘* Hortos suos ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat et Circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel circulo insistens’’.
%So Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 236: '' Odium humani generis was, as Arnold aptly points out, the crime of poisoners and magicians. . . . The punishments inflicted on the Christians under Nero are those ordered for magiciang. Paulls, Sentent. v. 23 M.: ‘‘ Magicae artis conscios summo supplicio afflici placuit, id est, bestiis obici aut cruci suffigi. Ipsi autem magi vivi exuruntur.”
4 Vita Neronis, xvi.: ‘‘ Multa sub eo et animadversa severe et coercita nec minus instituta . . . interdictum, ne quid in popinis cocti praeter legumina aut holera veniret cum antea nullum non obsonii genus proponeretur; adflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstition's novae ac maleficae.”’