Cruelty in pagan Rome
The Roman historian, Tacitus, (56–120 A.D) is one of the earliest witnesses outside the New Testament to the death of Jesus.
His Annals, written about 116 A.D., recounted the story of the Great Fire of Rome that destroyed much of the city in the year 64, when Nero was emperor.
Soon rumours began to spread that Nero himself had given instructions for the starting of the fire because he wanted to build a new, more orderly city.
To remove suspicion from himself, wrote Tacitus, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians.”
He explained that “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”
An immense multitude of Christians were arrested. “Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”
Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, but among the general population “there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good that they were being destroyed, but to glut one man’s cruelty.”
In another story, about the murder of a leading official in Rome, Tacitus gives a further insight into the cruelty of Roman paganism before Christianity.
In the year 61 A.D., when St Paul was still active, Pedanius Secundus, the prefect of Rome, was murdered by one of his slaves.
The slave may have been promised and then denied his freedom, or he may have been in love and resented rivalry from his master.
In any case, “ancient custom” required that all the man’s slaves, some 400 men, women and children, “should be dragged to execution.”
With the lives of so many innocent people at risk, the people rose up. Even in the Senate there was “a strong feeling on the part of those who shrank from extreme rigour.” But the majority there opposed any change in the law.
Among these was Caius Cassius who gave an eloquent speech in the Senate, pointing out that he had never before opposed a change in the customs and laws of the past. But he was against any softening of the law in this case.
“An ex-consul,” he said, “has been murdered in his house by the treachery of slaves, which not one hindered or divulged, though the Senate’s decree, which threatens the entire slave-establishment with execution, has been till now unshaken.”
If the law was changed, he asked, “who will be protected by his rank, when the prefecture of the capital has been of no avail to its holder? Who will be kept safe by the number of his slaves when 400 have not protected Secundus?”
He argued passionately that other slaves must have known of the killer’s plans. “Do you believe that a slave took courage to murder his master without letting fall a threatening word or uttering a rash syllable?,” he asked.
“Could he pass the night-guard, could he open the doors of the chamber, carry in a light, and accomplish the murder, while all were in ignorance?”
The senator accepted that many innocent people would die, but “there is some injustice in every great precedent,” he argued. “Though injurious to individuals, it has its compensation in the public advantage.”
No one dared singly to oppose Cassius, said Tacitus, but shouting voices rose in reply “from all who pitied the number, age, or sex, as well as the undoubted innocence of the great majority.”
Still, the vote for execution was carried. “But the sentence could not be obeyed in the face of a dense and threatening mob, armed with stones and firebrands.”
At this point the emperor intervened to reprimand the people. He then used a force of soldiers to “line the entire route by which the condemned were dragged to execution.”
Here was the kind of morality which prevailed under the pagan gods. It’s only when we grasp this that we begin to understand the impact that Christian faith and morality eventually had on the Roman empire.
His Annals, written about 116 A.D., recounted the story of the Great Fire of Rome that destroyed much of the city in the year 64, when Nero was emperor.
Soon rumours began to spread that Nero himself had given instructions for the starting of the fire because he wanted to build a new, more orderly city.
To remove suspicion from himself, wrote Tacitus, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians.”
He explained that “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”
An immense multitude of Christians were arrested. “Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”
Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, but among the general population “there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good that they were being destroyed, but to glut one man’s cruelty.”
In another story, about the murder of a leading official in Rome, Tacitus gives a further insight into the cruelty of Roman paganism before Christianity.
In the year 61 A.D., when St Paul was still active, Pedanius Secundus, the prefect of Rome, was murdered by one of his slaves.
The slave may have been promised and then denied his freedom, or he may have been in love and resented rivalry from his master.
In any case, “ancient custom” required that all the man’s slaves, some 400 men, women and children, “should be dragged to execution.”
With the lives of so many innocent people at risk, the people rose up. Even in the Senate there was “a strong feeling on the part of those who shrank from extreme rigour.” But the majority there opposed any change in the law.
Among these was Caius Cassius who gave an eloquent speech in the Senate, pointing out that he had never before opposed a change in the customs and laws of the past. But he was against any softening of the law in this case.
“An ex-consul,” he said, “has been murdered in his house by the treachery of slaves, which not one hindered or divulged, though the Senate’s decree, which threatens the entire slave-establishment with execution, has been till now unshaken.”
If the law was changed, he asked, “who will be protected by his rank, when the prefecture of the capital has been of no avail to its holder? Who will be kept safe by the number of his slaves when 400 have not protected Secundus?”
He argued passionately that other slaves must have known of the killer’s plans. “Do you believe that a slave took courage to murder his master without letting fall a threatening word or uttering a rash syllable?,” he asked.
“Could he pass the night-guard, could he open the doors of the chamber, carry in a light, and accomplish the murder, while all were in ignorance?”
The senator accepted that many innocent people would die, but “there is some injustice in every great precedent,” he argued. “Though injurious to individuals, it has its compensation in the public advantage.”
No one dared singly to oppose Cassius, said Tacitus, but shouting voices rose in reply “from all who pitied the number, age, or sex, as well as the undoubted innocence of the great majority.”
Still, the vote for execution was carried. “But the sentence could not be obeyed in the face of a dense and threatening mob, armed with stones and firebrands.”
At this point the emperor intervened to reprimand the people. He then used a force of soldiers to “line the entire route by which the condemned were dragged to execution.”
Here was the kind of morality which prevailed under the pagan gods. It’s only when we grasp this that we begin to understand the impact that Christian faith and morality eventually had on the Roman empire.
