And this state of things seems to continue through Hadrian’s principate. In his first year, Alexander, fifth successor of S. Peter at Rome, having been imprisoned under Trajan, suffers martyrdom; It would seem as if the same hand had struck down about the same time the heads of the two great churches of Rome and Antioch, the first and the third in rank, and perhaps ordered the execution of the bishop of Antioch at Rome, with that of the Roman bishop, in order to give greater force to the example.(176) Many other martyrs at Rome and in the north of Italy are found at this time. It is not at all necessary to suppose the personal action of Hadrian in these. After this he was engaged during fifteen years in those splendid progresses, in which he examined personally every part of his vast empire, from its northern frontier between Carlisle and Newcastle to the Euphrates. While he was so engaged, the governors of the various provinces would apply the existing law in the cases brought before them. He would have had to interfere, and that with the whole weight of the imperial arm, if he wished to check the course of the law. We have, however, recorded the most interesting fact that when he was at Athens in the year 126, Christians for the first time approached a Roman emperor with a public defence of their doctrines, and a persecution is said to have been stopped by the apologies which Quadratus and Aristides presented to him. Perhaps the rescript to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul of the province of Asia, which Justin has preserved, was a result of this. It runs thus: “I have received the letter written to me by your predecessor, the noble Serenius Granianus. And indeed it seems to me that that affair should not be passed by without a diligent examination, in order that Christians may not be disturbed, nor an occasion of false accusation be opened to informers. If, then, the provincials can present themselves openly with their petitions against Christians, so as to answer before the tribunal, let them do that, and not betake themselves to mere requests and outcries. It would be much more just that you should take cognisance of the matter, if any one be willing to accuse. If, then, any one denounce them, and prove that they are doing anything illegal, sentence them according to the gravity of the crime. But, by Hercules, if it be a mere false accusation, punish the informer according to its importance.”