Up to this time--in the eyes of most of the Romans--the Jew and the Christian were one people; they considered that if any difference at all existed, it was simply that the Christian was a dissenting Jew. Now apparently, after the burning of Rome, for the first time was any distinction made. It happened on this wise: the Jews had powerful friends in the court of the despotic Emperor. Poppæa the Empress, if not a Jewess, was at least a devoted proselyte of the chosen race. There is no doubt but that her influence, backed up no doubt by others about her person at the court, diverted the suspicions which had been awakened, from the Jews to the Christians. These, it was pointed out, were no real Jews, but were their deadly enemies; they were a hateful and hated sect quite improperly confounded with the chosen people. The Christians were now formally accused of being the real authors of the late calamity, and the accusation seems to have been generally popular among the masses of the Roman population. Our authorities for this popular hatred--we may style them contemporary--are Tacitus and Suetonius and the Christian Clement of Rome. The testimony of Pliny the Younger, who governed Bithynia under the Emperor Trajan, will be discussed later. Under the orders of Nero--who turned to his own purposes the popular dislike to the new sect of Jewish fanatics, as they generally were supposed to be--the Christians were sought for. It turned out that there was a vast multitude of them in the city, “ingens multitudo,” says Tacitus; and Clement of Rome, the Christian bishop and writer, _circa_ A.D. 96, also speaks of their great numbers. Many of the accused were condemned on the false charge of incendiarism, to which was added an accusation far harder to disprove--general hostility to society, and hatred of the world (_odio generis humani_). A crowd of Christians of both sexes was condemned to the wild beasts. It was arranged that they should provide a hideous amusement for the people who witnessed the games just then about to be celebrated in the imperial gardens on the Vatican Hill--on the very spot where the glorious basilica of S. Peter now stands.