Persecution under Nero and Domitian

Overview

The fire of Rome and the first imperial persecution, the evidence for Domitian's reign, and the earliest Christian responses.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What occasion prompted Nero's action against the Christians in AD 64?

   Model answer

   A fire destroyed much of Rome in July AD 64 and rumour blamed the emperor himself for starting it. Tacitus reports that Nero fastened the guilt on a group whom the populace already detested and called Christians.

2. 2

   How does Tacitus describe the Christians and their punishment?

   Model answer

   Tacitus calls their religion a deadly superstition which had broken out again in Rome, and says they were convicted less of arson than of hatred of the human race. He records that they were covered in the skins of beasts and torn by dogs, crucified, or set alight to serve as lamps by night, and adds that even the guilty came to be pitied.

3. 3

   What does Suetonius say about Nero and the Christians?

   Model answer

   Suetonius records that punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of people given to a new and mischievous superstition. Suetonius lists the action among Nero's commendable measures, which shows how the sect was regarded by educated Romans.

4. 4

   Which apostles are traditionally held to have died in the Neronian persecution?

   Model answer

   Christian tradition holds that Peter and Paul both died at Rome under Nero, Peter by crucifixion and Paul, as a Roman citizen, by beheading. The letter known as 1 Clement, written about AD 96, refers to their deaths and to a great multitude who suffered with them.

5. 5

   Why is the Neronian persecution not regarded as an empire-wide policy?

   Model answer

   The evidence points to a local action in the city of Rome arising from the fire rather than to any general edict. There is no sign of prosecutions elsewhere in the empire as a consequence, though the precedent that Christians could be punished for the name remained.

6. 6

   What did Tertullian mean by the institutum Neronianum?

   Model answer

   Tertullian argued that Nero was the first emperor to attack the Christian faith and that a Neronian ruling stood behind later action against Christians. Historians dispute whether any such formal enactment existed, since no Roman source records one.

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