2 Timothy 1:17

when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently It is the simple verb, and, according to the best mss., the positive not the comparative adverb, he sought me diligently. What -close confinement" could be under the Emperor Tiberius we see from Suet. Tib. 61 (quoted by Lewin) -quibusdam custodiae traditis non modo studendi solatium ademptum sed etiam sermonis et colloquii usus." What it could be under Nero's lieutenant Tigellinus, who succeeded Burrus as praefectus praetoriia.d. 63, we learn from Tacitus, who says of him (Hist. i. 72) -crudelitatem mox deinde avaritiam et virilia scelera exercuit corrupto ad omne facinus Nerone."

Where did Onesiphorus find St Paul? Nero to screen himself had given the word for the most virulent animosity against the Christians (Tac. Ann. xv. 44). When St Paul then was brought prisoner to Rome, he must have been known as one of their chief leaders, and as such would be confined now not in any -hired house," not in any -guard house" of the praetorium, or any minor state prison, such as that of Appius Claudius if it still existed, or even the -Stone Quarry Prison," lautumiae, at the furthest north-west corner of the Forum, but (we may believe) in the Carcer itself, the Tullianum or -Well-Dungeon," at the foot of the Capitol. This last with its chill vault and oozing spring was the worst, as we gather from Seneca Controv. ix. 3, where one Julius Sabinus asks to be removed from the -Carcer" the Prison par excellenceto the lautumiae. See Burn, Rome and the Campagna, p. 80, and his fuller account of the -Carcer" in Excursus.