The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutory laws were nullified by different emperors at different times, but Constantine and Licinius' Edict of Milan in 313 has traditionally marked the end of the persecution.
St. Erasmus flogged in the presence of Emperor Diocletian. Byzantine artwork, from the crypt of the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata in Rome.
Head from a statue of Diocletian at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum
Saint George before Diocletian. A 14th-century mural from Ubisi, Georgia. Christian tradition places the martyrdom of St. George, formerly a Roman army officer, in the reign of Diocletian.
Wall painting of martyred saints, Ananias, Azarias, and Misael from the town of Samalut with Saints Damian and Cosmas; martyred during the persecutions of Diocletian in the late 3rd century AD. Stucco. 6th century AD. From Wadi Sarga, Egypt. British Museum
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican state of ancient Rome. It is generally understood to mean the period and territory ruled by the Romans following Octavian's assumption of sole rule under the Principate in 27 BC. It included territories in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia and was ruled by emperors. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
Augustus of Prima Porta
Nerva (r. 96–98)
Trajan (r. 98–117)
Hadrian (r. 117–138)
