breach of trust and to deny a deposit when called upon to
restore it. When these things were finished it had been their
custom to disperse and reassemble later to eat food of an
ordinary, harmless kind; but they had given this up after my
edict (edictum) by which I had banned all political clubs
(hetaeriae) in accordance with your orders (mandata).8.
This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract
the truth by torture from two slave women, whom they
call ‘servers’ (ministrae). I discovered nothing more than a
depraved and immoderate superstition.
I have therefore adjourned the examination (cognitio) and
hastened to consult you. 9.The matter seems to me to be
worthy of your consideration, especially in view of the
number of persons at risk. For many people of every age,
every social rank, both men and women, are being brought
and will be brought into danger. It is not only the towns,
but the villages and countryside too which are infected
through contact with this superstition; yet it seems possible
to check it and to set things right. 10.At any rate, it is clear
enough that the temples which had been almost entirely
deserted hitherto are beginning to be frequented, and the
sacred rites which had been allowed to lapse for a long time
are being performed again, and flesh of sacrificial victims,
for which until recently scarcely any buyer could be found,
is on sale everywhere. It is easy to deduce from this that a
great many people could be reformed if they were given an
opportunity to repent.
(Pliny the Younger, Letters10.96,
adapted from Radice 1969)To this enquiry, Trajan replied as follows:
1.You have followed the right course of action, my dear
Secundus [i.e. Pliny], in your examination of the cases of
those who have been charged with being Christians. For it
is impossible to lay down a general rule in something likeEARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE1
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