gs, on the body of a newborn
child. This feast was said to be followed by an entertainment in which
men and women abandoned themselves to the most abominable and
promiscuous licentiousness. These charges, absurd as they were, served
to obliterate any ray of pity which otherwise might have visited the
minds of their persecutors.

In the year 81, Domitian, whom Tertullian describes as "of Nero's type
in cruelty," succeeded Titus on the imperial throne. Influenced by his
suspicion of all organizations, and also by the refusal of the Jewish
people to pay the capitation tax which was designed to provide for the
finishing of the Capitol, he instituted a persecution of the Jews,
which, for want of better knowledge on the part of the Romans, could not
fail to involve the Christians. His own niece, Domitilla, who had been
married to his cousin Flavius Clemens, was an avowed Christian, though
up to this time the faith had made few converts among the high and
mighty. Domitian banished her to the Island of Pandataria, and put to
death her husband, probably on the same charge. They were accused rather
vaguely of atheism and Jewish manners; but it seems probable that the
Church has made no mistake in placing them among her first sufferers.
This persecution by Domitian is counted as the second in the list of
ten; but, though many besides Domitilla were put to death, it hardly
seems possible that the persecution could have become very general, for
only a few months after it began Domitian was assassinated by a freedman
belonging to Domitilla, who, as Gibbon remarks, surely had not embraced
the faith of his mistress.

The reign of the Emperor Trajan was, in many respects, marked by the
greatest prosperity and the best administration that Rome ever enjoyed;
but his strict government and close supervision, combined with his
loyalty to the ancient traditions, made that reign an era of severity
for the Christians. Pliny was governor of Bithynia and Pontus, and
thence he wrote to the emperor informing him that the Christians were
gaining headway everywhere, so much so that the temples of the gods were
being forsaken by the people of all classes. He desired advice as to how
he should proceed. By the application of torture to two maidservants who
held the office of deaconesses in the local church he had elicited the
information--for the learning of which, doubtless, torture was entirely
unnecessary--that "the whole sum of their error consiste