the religion, after a short check, broke out
again and spread; 3dly, that it so spread as that, within thirty-four
years from the Author's death, a very great number of Christians (ingens
eorum multitudo) were found at Rome. From which fact, the two following
inferences may be fairly drawn: first, that if, in the space of
thirty-four years from its commencement, the religion had spread
throughout Judea, had extended itself to Rome, and there had numbered a
great multitude of converts, the original teachers and missionaries of
the institution could not have been idle; secondly, that when the Author
of the undertaking was put to death as a malefactor for his attempt, the
endeavours of his followers to establish his religion in the same
country, amongst the same people, and in the same age, could not but be
attended with danger.

Suetonius, a writer contemporary with Tacitus, describing the
transactions of the same reign, uses these words: "Affecti suppliciis
Christiani genus hominum superstitionis novae et maleficae." (Suet.
Nero. Cap. 16) "The Christians, a set of men of a new and mischievous
(or magical) superstition, were punished."

Since it is not mentioned here that the burning of the city was the
pretence of the punishment of the Christians, or that they were the
Christians of Rome who alone suffered, it is probable that Suetonius
refers to some more general persecution than the short and occasional
one which Tacitus describes.

Juvenal, a writer of the same age with the two former, and intending, it
should seem, to commemorate the cruelties exercised under Nero's
government, has the following lines: (Sat. i. ver. 155)

"Pone Tigellinum, taeda lucebis in illa,
Qua stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant,
Et latum media sulcum deducit arena" (Forsan "deducis.")

"Describe Tigellinus (a creature of Nero), and you shall suffer the same
punishment with those who stand burning in their own flame and smoke,
their head being held up by a stake fixed to their chin, till they make
a long stream of blood and melted sulphur on the ground."

If this passage were considered by itself, the subject of allusion might
be doubtful; but, when connected with the testimony of Suetonius, as to
the actual punishment of the Christians by Nero, and with the account
given by Tacitus of the species of punishment which they were made to
undergo, I think it sufficiently probable that these were the executions
to which the poet refers.