Note 17 — PART II
Reading edition
He struck (says the Roman poet), without exciting popular indignation, at the illustrious citizen:
“Tempora sævitiæ, claras quibus abstulit Urbi Illustresque animas impune, et vindice nullo.”
But when his rage touched the people—he fell:
“Sed periit, postquam cerdonibus esse timendus cœperat” ... (Juvenal, iv. 151–4).
The word cerdones included the poorest and humblest artisans. The word is commonly translated “cobblers”—French savetiers; it is usually applied to the slave class, or to those engaged in the poorest industries.
Allard (Histoire des Persécutions, i. 11, chap. iv.) considers that the disgust and pity of the populace when they saw the horrible cruelties practised in the celebrated games of Nero in A.D. 64, were partly owing to the indignation of the people when they perceived that so many of their own class were among the tormented Christians in that horrible massacre.
Aubé, too, in his Histoire des Persécutions, calls special attention to these lines of Juvenal. He connects the murder of Domitian closely with the indignation aroused among the people by this bitter persecution, and suggests that the plot which resulted in the assassination of the tyrant originated in a Christian centre. This is, however, in the highest degree improbable.