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.

These things, as has already been observed, took place within thirty-one
years after Christ's death, that is, according to the course of nature,
in the life-time, probably, of some of the apostles, and certainly in
the life-time of those who were converted by the apostles, or who were
converted in their time. If then the Founder of the religion was put to
death in the execution of his design; if the first race of converts to
the religion, many of them, suffered the greatest extremities for their
profession; it is hardly credible, that those who came between the two,
who were companions of the Author of the institution during his life,
and the teachers and propagators of the institution after his death,
could go about their undertaking with ease and safety.