It is impossible to arrive at even an approximate estimate of the number of victims of the early persecutions. That number has sometimes, no doubt, been greatly exaggerated. It has also, in defiance of the testimony of contemporary history, been unreasonably minified.[152] Tacitus asserts that under Nero a great multitude[153] were convicted and punished. Pliny says the temples were almost deserted[154] through this contagious superstition. Juvenal, Martial, and other classical authors, notice the extraordinary sufferings of the Christians. Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, says, “It is impossible to number the martyrs of Christ.”[155] Eusebius, an eye-witness of the last persecution, states that innumerable multitudes suffered during its prevalence. After describing their excruciating tortures, he adds: “And all these things were doing not 106 for a few days, but for a series of whole years. At one time ten or more, then twenty, again thirty or even sixty, and sometimes a hundred men, with their wives and children, were slain in one day.”[156] He also describes the destruction of a Christian town, with all its inhabitants, by fire.[157] Lactantius, also a contemporary witness, tells us that the Christians were often surrounded on all sides and burnt together.[158] It is very remarkable that so few martyrs’ epitaphs have been found in the Catacombs, not more than five or six altogether, and some of these are not of unquestioned genuineness. But this may be attributed to the humility and modesty of the early Christians, who shrank from claiming for the sufferers for the truth the august title of martyr, which they restricted to the one faithful and true witness, Jesus Christ. “We,” said the victims of persecution at Lyons, “are only mean and humble confessors.”