286
THE DECIAN PERSECUTION.
but an invention, by which the genealogists of the time
meant to pay him a compliment. Decius was a native
of Illyricum; his birthplace was probably one of the military
colonies which had been established there within the last two
centuries, and by means of which the inhabitants of those dis-
tricts had become completely Romanised. When Philippus
raised Decius to the command of the revolted legions, Decius
cautioned the emperor, and begged of him not to place him in
a position in which he should probably be compelled to violate
his faith; for the legions dreaded the punishment which they
had deserved, and were not inclined to return to obedience.
Philippus, however, insisted upon Decius undertaking the com-
mand, and the consequence was that the soldiers compelled
Decius to accept the imperial dignity, and lead them to Italy.
Even there he is said to have repeated his assurances of fidelity
to Philippus; but a battle in the neighbourhood of Verona, in
which Philippus fell, decided the matter.
The writers of the ilHistoriaAugusta" and Zosimus, who is
a passionate pagan, make Decius a hero, and I will not detract
from the fame of a man of whom so much good is said. But
he was the first, after a very long interval, who instituted a
vehement persecution of the Christians, for which he is cursed
by the ecclesiastical writers, as much as he is praised by the
pagan historians. The cause of this persecution must, I think,
be sought for in a feeling antagonistic to the tendency of his
predecessor. The accounts of the number of those who were
murdered are highly exaggerated, as Dodwell has justly pointed
out; but the persecution of Decius was yet a very serious one;
it interrupted the peace which, disturbed by a few trifling occur-
rences only, the Christian Church had long enjoyed. For one
year and a half the episcopal see of Rome remained vacant; and
Decius is reported to have said, that he would rather have a second
emperor by his side, than have a bishop at Rome. This shews the
extensive influence which Christianity had obtained as early
as that time, although the Christians formed but a small portion
of the whole population. Among the high Roman nobility
there was perhaps not one Christian ; but many persons of the
middle classes had already embraced the new religion at Rome,
Carthage, Alexandria, and especially at Antioch. In the East
they were scattered very widely; in the West they chiefly
existed in the large towns; in country districts there were
STATE OF THE ROMAN POPULATION.
287
scarcely any. The greatest part of Gaul knew nothing of the
Christian religion; which, according to all appearance, had
taken root only in such towns as Arles, Marseilles, Lyons, and
the like. The Acta of the martyrs at Lyons are quite authentic.
In Spain, Christianity had probably not spread more than in
Gaul; but in Africa its adherents were very numerous and
zealous, at a comparatively early period. In Greece proper
their number was small ; but in the Ionic towns of Asia Minor
it was very great.
I will here, at the middle of the third century, make a pause
for the purpose of giving you some general views; for, at this
epoch, a circumstance not previously observed begins to be-
come apparent. The coins and inscriptions belonging to the
early period of the empire are not numerous: most of the
extant sepulchral inscriptions are referable to the time extend-
ing from the end of the first century down to the middle of
the third ; and by far the greater number of them commemorate
the deaths of freedmen, so that the ratio of Iibertini to ingenui
is nearly as ten to one. Most of the beautiful marble tombs of
the great families have disappeared ; they were destroyed and
plundered during the middle ages, and the stones were used as
building materials in the restoration of Lome. Nearly all the
tombs extant belong to second or third-rate persons. After
the beginning of the third century, the names of ingenui every-
where get into confusion. I do not remember a single tomb
of a freedman, after the middle of that century : hence I infer
that about that time a most important change took place in
the state of the population. The importation of slaves must
have ceased, occasioning an immense decrease in the number
of persons in a household ; and the Iibertini seem now to have
become col<mi. There must have been some connecting link
between these two classes of men ; but it will perhaps remain
for ever impossible to ascertain its nature.
Senatorial provinces are mentioned as late as the time of
Septimius Severus, but he is said to have taken them from
the senate; after the middle of the third century we hear no
more of them8, and thus the way was paved for the regulations
of Diocletian and Constantine.
Art in general had by this time sunk into a state of bar-
barism, as no one can deny who has examined the monuments.
8 Vopiscus, Florian, 6, Probus, 13.