Diocletian was declared Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in 284. Within two decades he had established a powerful ‘tetrarchy’ of four rulers who began to restore order and wealth to an empire that had suffered a range of internal and external threats over the previous century.
Christians were perceived by many in traditional Roman society to be a threat to the established order. Not only was the religion seen as a foreign cult, it was built on a monotheistic belief that directly undermined traditional Roman religion. Contemporary sources say that Diocletian himself was broadly tolerant of Christians in the early years of his rule and indicate that it was the tetrarch Galerius who encouraged the introduction of persecutory policies.
On 23 February 303 Diocletian ordered that the newly-built church in Nicomedia should be destroyed, along with its scriptures. The following day he published the first of four edicts that went on to strip Christians of their legal rights and the freedom to assemble to worship, and later demanded that they conform to established Roman religious practices such as performing sacrifices to the gods.
The persecutions continued for eight years, during which time thousands of Christians were killed for their faith. Nevertheless, the religion survived and, shortly after Diocletian’s death in 311, Galerius himself issued the Edict of Toleration which legalised Christianity in the Eastern Empire. Constantine and Licinius went further in 313 and, following the former’s emergence as sole Emperor in 324, Christianity quickly began to spread across the Empire.
