ABSTRACT
The political, economic and military reforms of Diocletian and Constantine tackled most areas of government where weaknesses were apparent. A running sore, however, since the first century Ad had been the intermittent conflict between the Roman state and the growing Christian Church. This came to its most violent head in the first decade of the fourth century, with the ‘Great Persecution’ which was authorised by Diocletian but which, according to Lactantius in De Mortibus Persecutorum (‘On the Deaths of the Persecutors’), was principally orchestrated by Diocletian’s Caesar, Galerius.
