Tertullian

“ But I will grapple with [11] the charge of sacrilegious vanity, and remind you of [12] the irreverence of your own lower classes, and the scandalous lampoons [13] of which the statues are so cognizant, and the sneers which are sometimes uttered at the public games, [14] and the curses with which the circus resounds. If not in arms, you are in tongue at all events always rebellious. ”

“ On this head [5] the Roman people must see to it who they are amongst whom [6] there still remain nations which are unsubdued and foreign to their rule. But, at all events, you are of us, [7] and yet you conspire against us. (In reply, we need only state) a well-known fact, [8] that we acknowledge the fealty of Romans to the emperors. No conspiracy has ever broken out from our body: no Cæsar’s blood has ever fixed a stain upon us, in the senate or even in the palace; no assumption of the purple has ever in any of the provinces been affected by us. ”