Reign of Domitian who persecutes Jews and those who converted to Judaism. “The tax on the Jews was exacted with particular rigor; it was also imposed on the proselytes who lived in the fashion of the Jews without declaring themselves Jewish and on those who, concealing their origin, tried to avoid the tributes imposed on this nation. “I remember seeing, when I was hardly an adolescent, a procurator examining a ninety–year–old man to see if he were circumcised” (Suetonius, Life of Twelve Caesars, “Domitian,” VIII, 12).