Just as the Greeks were reluctant to admit foreigners to citizenship, they were also reluctant to admit exotic gods into their pantheon. In both, their policy was diametrically opposed to that of Rome. Their exclusiveness in the former regard was due to their belief in their own superiority; in the latter, to the conviction that their national gods were sufficient for all human needs. Friedlaender is probably right in his contention that the period here under consideration shows no decay in what we may call religion, either in Greece or Rome. Its external forms and traditional rites were sedulously kept up and scrupulously maintained. Plutarch likewise bears testimony to this condition of things. Scoffers and infidels had become more numerous, mainly because the Romans were more tolerant in such matters than the Greeks. To the ruling class all cults were alike; consequently they made no objections to anything that was spoken or written, so long as their authority was not directly or indirectly attacked. In the various controversies about religion mentioned in the New Testament, the attitude of the government is always one of indifference except as to the maintenance of public order. The Greeks, generally speaking, preferred, like Plutarch, the limited sphere of local political activity to the larger one offered at Rome. The provincials who came to honor on the other side of the Adriatic were few in number. In the main the provinces fared better under the imperial government than under the republic. There was a higher degree of probability that wrongs would be redressed. A case in point is that of the apostle Paul who appealed to Caesar even when the Caesar was Nero.