But in Rome from the accession of Commodus in 180 to the death of Heliogabalus in 222 we find a profound corruption of morals, an excess of cruelty, and a disregard of civil rights, which could scarcely be exceeded. Tacitus, at the beginning of Trajan’s reign, burst forth into indignation at the thought that it had cost Rusticus and Senecio their lives, in Domitian’s time, to have praised Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, and that their very writings had been publicly burned, as if that fire could extinguish the voice of the Roman people, the liberty of the senate, and the conscience of mankind. “Truly great,” he cried, “was the specimen of patient endurance which we exhibited.”(203) What words, then, would he have found to express the degradation of servile spirit in that selfsame city a hundred years later, when Plautianus, the favourite minister of Septimius Severus, at the marriage of his daughter with Caracalla, caused a hundred persons of good family, some of them already fathers, secretly to be made eunuchs, in order that they might serve as chamberlains to the imperial bride.(204) Or to take another example; as Quintillus, one of the chiefs of the senate, both by birth and by the employments which he had held, a man of advanced years and living retired in the country, was seized in order to be put to death, he declared that his only surprise was that he had been suffered to live so long, and that he had made every preparation for his burial. A third incident will show both the sort of crimes for which men were punished, the protection given by the law to the individual, and the spirit and temper of the senate. It had condemned Apronianus, proconsul of Asia, without giving him a hearing, because his nurse had dreamt that he was one day to reign, concerning which he was reported to have consulted a magician. Now, in reading the informations laid against him, it was found that a witness deposed that during the consultation some senator who was bald had stretched out his head to listen. Upon this all the bald senators, even those who had never gone to the house of Apronianus, began to tremble, while the rest put their hands to their heads to make sure that they had still their hair. However, a certain Marcellinus fell under special suspicion, whereupon he demanded that the witness should be brought in, who could not fail to recognise him if guilty. The witness looked round upon them all for a long time without saying a word, until upon a sign that a certain senator made him, he declared it was Marcellinus, who forthwith was hurried out of the senate to be beheaded, before Severus was even informed of it. As he went to execution he met four of his children, to whom he said that his greatest grief was to leave them living after him in so miserable a time.(205) It was not without reason that Tertullian at this very moment encouraged the martyrs to be constant, with the reflection that there was no one who