Note 93 — PART I FROM THE DATE OF THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME IN THE REIGN OF NERO TO THE DEATH OF MARCUS ANTONINUS A.D. 64–A.D. 180

In this Third Book, where the question of the persecutions to which the early Christian Church was subjected is discussed, the period especially alluded to stretches from circa A.D. 64 to A.D. 180, including the reigns of the Flavian Emperors, of Hadrian and the Antonines.

But the conditions under which the Christians in the Roman Empire lived during the century and a quarter which followed the period above referred to, in very many respects differed but little from those that prevailed in the earlier years—only in the later period there were more years of comparative immunity from active persecution, while, on the ether hand, when the comparatively “still” years came to an end, the cruelties inflicted upon the Christians were more marked, and the severity of the punishments meted out by the dominant pagan party in the State were greater and more far-reaching than in the earlier days—notably in the reigns of Maximin, Decius and Diocletian.