Similarly, the portrait of the persecutions in Christian
accounts (both ancient and modern) as a determined effort to
expunge the religion entirely seems to be based on an overly opti-
mistic impression of the efficacy of Roman government. All too
often, it is assumed that the Roman empire was rather like a mod-
ern nation (albeit one of a decidedly totalitarian hue) that could
impose its laws wherever and whenever it pleased with compara-
tive ease. Such a view is implicit in Edward Gibbon’s oft-quoted
verdict on Roman government in the second century AD:
If a man were called upon to fix the period in the history of
the world, during which the condition of the human race was
most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation,
name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to
the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman
Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guid-
ance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by
the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose
characters and authority commanded universal respect.
(Gibbon 1776–88 [1994]: I, 103)These days historians of the Roman world are likely to contend
that, in many respects, the efficacy of imperial administration was
altogether more limited. There was little scope for any emperor
(even one of Gibbon’s ‘good’ ones) to have a direct influence on
anything more than the small groups of individuals with whom
he came into direct contact (either in person or through the
process of law), much less the ‘human race’ as a whole. Until
the reforms of the emperor Diocletian in the late third century,
the bureaucratic apparatus of the imperial administration was too
small to allow for a more intrusive style of government. Even the
emperor’s deputies in the provinces, his governors, could rely on
only a small body of advisors and troops to help them with the
business of administration. In the absence of large numbers of
civil servants, therefore, the Romans had to rely on the coopera-
tion of local elites the length and breadth of the empire to see
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