quite firm that ‘in other cities, which are subject to our gover-
nance, institutions of this kind must be forbidden’ (10.93). All of
this is consonant with something Trajan wrote in another of his
letters to Pliny: the governor had been appointed to guarantee that
peace (quies) would be restored to the province (10.117).
It seems clear that Trajan and Pliny were nervous about
secret societies disrupting the peaceful order of life in the cities.
Could this explain something of their attitude to the Christians?
Certainly, a link is often drawn between the mention of the
hetaeriaein the letter concerning the Christians with that in the
correspondence about the fire brigade at Nicomedia (e.g. Clark
2004: 19; cf. Downing 1995: 241, citing the Amisus letters also).
A. N. Sherwin-White, who devoted much of his scholarly career
to elucidating both Pliny and the Roman persecutions of the
Christians, was wary of seeing the provisions against hetaeriae
as the basis for Pliny’s actions (1966: 708, 779). At best, we can
say that those persons who ceased attending Christian gatherings
after Pliny had issued his edictumwere sensitive to the fact that
they might be entrapped by such a measure, and liable to punish-
ment as a result. Pliny’s letter emphasizes above all that the
impetus for the prosecution, and persecution, of Christians came
predominantly from the local population. The reference to a
pamphlet (libellus) and an informer (index) in bringing forward
charges suggests that Christians were easy victims for anonymous
accusations, especially at a time when emperor and governor
were apprehensive about potential causes of sedition.
However instructive the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan
might be about the dealings of one emperor and governor with a
particular cluster of Christians at a specific date, the letters are a
reminder also of how much we do not know. We can only guess
at the motives that drove the accusations against the Christians;
perhaps they too were a product of the rivalries that had caused
much unrest in the cities of Bithynia and Pontus. Such gaps
in our knowledge, however, are common enough. By the third
century, there seems to have been a considerable body of impe-
rial legislation concerning the Christians. The lawyer Ulpian (died
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