Irene Plunket 
Europe in the Middle Ages [EPUB ebook] 

In the modern world it is sometimes necessary to remind people of their citizenship, but the Roman never forgot the greatness of his inheritance. When St. Paul, bound with thongs and condemned to be scourged, declared, ‘I am Roman born, ‘ the Captain of the Guard, who had only gained his citizenship by paying a large sum of money, was afraid of the prisoner on whom he had laid hands without a trial.