Revelation 17:2

Tyre's commercial intercourse with the nations (Isaiah 23:17) and Assyria's political intrigues, by which her statecraft fascinated and seduced other states (Nahum 3:4) are both described by the same figure. Local and national cults, as a rule, were left undisturbed by the Romans; and indeed Oriental superstitions often reacted powerfully on Rome itself. But fresh conquests meant the extension of Rome's intoxicating and godless suzerainty.