This difficulty, so serious at first sight, becomes much less serious when we consider that we must except from the number of these inscriptions, all such as belong to the reign of Julian the Apostate, in whose days there was certainly no lack of martyrs. This deduction made, the number of inscriptions, hitherto found, marked with the names of consuls posterior to Constantine, and in connection with the phial of blood, amounts to the comparatively insignificant number of about thirty. To account for this number of martyrs after Constantine, it is not necessary, on the one hand, to suppose a general persecution; and on the other, we have ample testimony to the existence of partial persecutions and outbreaks against the Christians, more than sufficient to have caused the death of a much greater number. In the first place, some of the Christian emperors were Arians, and as such little careful to protect the Catholics against the fury of the Pagans or of the heretics. Saint Felix II., Eusebius the Priest, and many others received the crown of martyrdom from this cause. In the next place, the orthodox emperors generally did not reside at Rome, which they governed by prefects, who were for the most part Pagans. Besides, the Roman nobility long continued, not only Pagan, but violently attached to Pagan superstitions. Among the people, too, there were many Pagans whose rage at the decay of their own religion, was provoked still more by the sight of the progress made by Christianity. The state of Rome during this period will best be understood by the two following facts. In the year 369, the Prefect of Rome having rebuilt the portico of the Dei Consenti under the Capitol, whilst Valentinian I. was Emperor, and Saint Damasus was Pope, was bold enough to place on its front an inscription still to be read: "Deorum Consentium Sacrosancta Simulachra". The famous Altar of Victory, in the Capitol, was kept in its place of honour as late as the reign of Theodosius, notwithstanding the efforts of the preceding emperors to remove it. Nor could even that great emperor effect its removal without exciting tumults on the part of the Pagan senators. In such a state of society, lasting more or less for a century and a half, is it hard to find a place for the martyrdom of many and many a Christian? 2. The second difficulty is as follows: Many of the graves marked by the phial of blood are also marked by the presence of that special form of the monogram of Christ which belongs to the period of Constantine; they cannot, therefore, be the graves of martyrs.