Note 95 — PART I FROM THE DATE OF THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME IN THE REIGN OF NERO TO THE DEATH OF MARCUS ANTONINUS A.D. 64–A.D. 180
Reading edition
The reference here is to pagan Rome, as “the woman drunken with blood”; so Mommsen quoted by Ramsay, who dwells on the fact that the death of the saints springs directly from their acknowledgment of their religion, and not for conviction for specific crimes.