Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire

Roman religion's characteristic openness has led many, such as Ramsay MacMullen to say that in its process of expansion, the Roman Empire was "completely tolerant, in heaven as on earth". Peter Garnsey strongly disagrees with those who describe the attitude concerning the "plethora of cults" in the Roman empire before Constantine as "tolerant" or "inclusive". In his view, it is a misuse of terminology. Yet he goes on to say this did not apply equally to all gods: "Many divinities were brought to Rome and installed as part of the Roman state religion, but a great many more were not". According to Rodney Stark, since Christians most likely formed only sixteen to seventeen percent of the empire's population at the time of Constantine's conversion, they did not have the numerical advantage to form a sufficient power–base to begin a systematic persecution of pagans. Brown reminds his readers, "We should not underestimate the fierce mood of the Christians of the fourth century", and, he says, it must be remembered that repression, persecution and martyrdom do not generally breed tolerance of those same persecutors. Brown says Roman authorities had shown no hesitation in "taking out" the Christian church which they saw as a threat to the peace of the empire, and that Constantine and his successors did what they did for the same reasons. Rome had been removing anything it saw as a challenge to Roman identity since Bacchic associations were dissolved in 186 BCE; this had become the pattern for the Roman state's response to anything it saw as a religious threat. According to Brown, that attitude and belief in what was required to maintain the peace of the empire didn't change just because the emperors were Christian. ==Constantine I (306–337)==

According to Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, German historian of Antiquity, there is a persistent pagan tradition that Constantine did not persecute pagans. He proceeded to end the exclusion and persecution of Christians, restored confiscated property to the churches, and adopted a policy toward non-Christians of toleration with limits. The Edict of Milan (313) redefined Imperial ideology as one of mutual toleration. Constantine could be seen to embody both Christian and Greco-Roman religious interests. Constantine openly supported Christianity after 324; Laws menaced death, but during Constantine's reign, no one suffered the death penalty for violating anti-pagan laws against sacrifice. His earlier edict, the Edict of Milan, was restated in the Edict of the Provincials. Historian Harold A. Drake points out that this edict called for peace and tolerance: "Let no one disturb another, let each man hold fast to that which his soul wishes…" Constantine never reversed this edict. Constantine made many derogatory and contemptuous comments relating to the old religion; writing of the "true obstinacy" of the pagans, of their "misguided rites and ceremonial", and of their "temples of lying" contrasted with "the splendours of the home of truth". In a later letter to the King of Persia, Constantine wrote how he shunned the "abominable blood and hateful odors" of pagan sacrifices, and instead worshiped the High God "on bended knee". Church historians writing after his death wrote that Constantine converted to Christianity and was baptised on his deathbed, thereby making him the first Christian emperor. Lenski observes that the myth of Constantine being baptized by Pope Sylvester developed toward the end of the fifth century in a romantic depiction of Sylvester's life which has survived as the Actus beati Sylvestri papae (CPL 2235). According to historian R. Malcolm Errington, in Book 2 of Eusebius' De vita Constantini, chapter 44, Eusebius explicitly states that Constantine wrote a new law "appointing mainly Christian governors and also a law forbidding any remaining pagan officials from sacrificing in their official capacity". Other significant evidence fails to support Eusebius' claim of an end to sacrifice. Constantine, in his Letter to the Eastern Provincials, never mentions any law against sacrifices. Archaeologist Luke Lavan writes that blood sacrifice was already declining in popularity by the time of Constantine, just as construction of new temples was also declining, but that this seems to have little to do with anti-paganism. Drake has written that Constantine personally abhorred sacrifice and removed the obligation to participate in them from the list of duties for imperial officials, but evidence of an actual sweeping ban on sacrifice is slight, while evidence of its continued practice is great. It is not a history so much as a panegyric praising Constantine. The laws as they are stated in the Life of Constantine often do not correspond, "closely, or at all", to the text of the Codes themselves. While most scholars agree it is likely Constantine did institute the first laws against sacrifice, leading to its end by the 350s, paganism itself did not end when public sacrifice did. Brown explains that polytheists were accustomed to offering prayers to the gods in many ways and places that did not include sacrifice, that pollution was only associated with sacrifice, and that the ban on sacrifice had fixed boundaries and limits. Paganism thus remained widespread into the early fifth century continuing in parts of the empire into the seventh and beyond. Magic and private divination Maijastina Kahlos, scholar of Roman literature, says religion before Christianity was a decidedly public practice. Therefore, private divination, astrology, and 'Chaldean practices' (formulae, incantations, and imprecations designed to repulse demons and protect the invoker) all became associated with magic in the early imperial period (AD 1–30), and carried the threat of banishment and execution even under the pagan emperors. Lavan explains these same private and secret religious rituals were not just associated with magic but also with treason and secret plots against the emperor. Kahlos says Christian emperors inherited this fear of private divination. The church had long spoken against anything connected to magic and its uses. Polymnia Athanassiadi says that, by the mid fourth century, prophecy at the Oracles of Delphi and Didyma had been definitively stamped out. However, Athanassiadi says the church's real targets in Antiquity were home-made oracles for the practice of theurgy: the interpretation of dreams with the intent of influencing human affairs. The church had no prohibitions against the interpretation of dreams by itself, yet, according to Athanassiadi, both Church and State viewed using it to influence events as "the most pernicious aspect of the pagan spirit". Two years after the consecration of Constantinople, Constantine left Rome behind, and on 4 November 328, new rituals were performed to dedicate the city as the new capital of the Roman empire. Among the attendants were the Neoplatonist philosopher Sopater and pontifex maximus Praetextus. A year and a half later, on 11 May 330, at the festival of Saint Mocius, the dedication was celebrated and commemorated with special coins with Sol Invictus on them. In commemoration, Constantine had a statue of the goddess of fortune Tyche built, as well as a column made of porphyry, at the top of which was a golden statue of Apollo with the face of Constantine looking toward the sun. Libanius the historian (Constantine's contemporary) writes in a passage from his In Defense of the Temples that Constantine 'looted the Temples' around the eastern empire in order to get their treasures to build Constantinople. Historian Ramsay MacMullen explains this by saying Constantine "wanted to obliterate non-Christians, but lacking the means, he had to be content with robbing their temples". Constantine did not obliterate what he took, though. He reused it. Litehart says "Constantinople was newly founded, but it deliberately evoked the Roman past religiously as well as politically". According to historian , there is good reason to believe the ancestral temples of Helios, Artemis and Aphrodite remained functioning in Constantinople. The Acropolis, with its ancient pagan temples, was left as it was. Desacralization and destruction of temples , ca 400: it was defaced and thrown in a well at Abbey of Montier-en-Der. Using the same vocabulary of restoration he had used for Aelia Capitolina, Constantine acquired sites of Christian significance in the Holy Land for the purpose of constructing churches, destroying the temples in those places. For example, Constantine destroyed the Temple of Aphrodite in Lebanon. However, archaeology indicates this type of destruction did not happen as often as the literature claims. For example, at the sacred oak and spring at Mamre, a site venerated and occupied by Christians, Jews and pagans alike, the literature says Constantine ordered the burning of the idols, the destruction of the altar, and erection of a church. The archaeology of the site, however, demonstrates that Constantine's church along with its attendant buildings, only occupied a peripheral sector of the precinct, leaving the rest unhindered. Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources, but only four have been confirmed by archaeological evidence. Archaeologists Lavan and Mulryan write that earthquakes, civil conflict, and external invasions caused much of the temple destruction of this era. The Roman economy of the third and fourth centuries struggled, and traditional polytheism was expensive. Roger S. Bagnall reports that imperial financial support declined markedly after Augustus. Lower budgets meant the physical decline of urban structures of all types. This progressive decay was accompanied by an increased trade in salvaged building materials, as the practice of recycling became common in Late Antiquity. Church restrictions opposing the pillaging of pagan temples by Christians were in place even while the Christians were being persecuted by the pagans. According to historian Gilbert Dagron, there were fewer temples constructed empire-wide, for mostly financial reasons, after the building craze of the 2nd century ended. However, Constantine's reign did not comprise the end of temple construction. In addition to destroying temples, he both permitted and commissioned temple construction. The dedication of new temples is attested in the historical and archaeological records until the end of the 4th century. Under Constantine, (and for the first decade or so of the reigns of his sons), most of the temples remained open for the official pagan ceremonies and for the more socially acceptable activities of libation and offering of incense. Despite the polemic of Eusebius claiming Constantine razed all the temples, Constantine's principal contribution to the downfall of the temples lay quite simply in his neglect of them. ==Constantius II (337–361)==

Constantine's policies were largely continued by his sons though not universally or continuously. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Constantius issued bans on sacrifice which were in keeping with his personal maxim: "Cesset superstitio; sacrificiorum aboleatur insania" (Let superstition cease; let the folly of sacrifices be abolished). When Constantius removed the altar he also allowed the statue of Victory to remain, therefore Thompson concludes that the removal of the altar was to avoid having to personally sacrifice when he was visiting Rome. In Thompson's view, this makes the altar's removal an act to accommodate his personal religion without offending the pagan senators by refusing to observe their rites. Orientalist Alexander Vasiliev says that Constantius carried out a persistent anti-pagan policy, and that sacrifices were prohibited in all localities and cities of the empire on penalty of death and confiscation of property. There is no evidence that the harsh penalties of the anti-sacrifice laws were ever enforced. Edward Gibbon's editor J. B. Bury dismisses Constantius’ law against sacrifice as one which could only be observed "here and there", asserting that it could never, realistically, have been enforced within a society that still contained the strong pagan element of Late Antiquity, particularly within the imperial machinery itself. Christians were a minority and paganism was still popular among the population, as well as the elites at the time. The emperor's policies were therefore passively resisted by many governors, magistrates, and even bishops, rendering the anti-pagan laws largely impotent when it came to their application. and never acted against the various pagan schools. Legislation against magic and divination In 357, Constantius II linked divination and magic in a piece of legislation forbidding anyone from consulting a diviner, astrologer, or a soothsayer; then he listed augurs and seers, Chaldeans, magicians and 'all the rest' who were to be made to be silent because the people called them malefactors. In the fourth century, Augustine labeled old Roman religion and its divinatory practices as magic and therefore illegal. Thereafter, legislation tended to automatically combine the two. Temples There is a law in the Theodosian Code that dates to the time of Constantius for the preservation of the temples situated outside of city walls. Constantius also enacted a law that exacted a fine from those who were guilty of vandalizing sites holy to pagans and placed the care of these monuments and tombs under the pagan priests. Successive emperors in the 4th century made legislative attempts to curb violence against pagan shrines, and in a general law issued in 458 by the Eastern emperor Leo and the western emperor Majorian, (457 to 461), the temples and other public works gained protection with strict penalties attached. Mob violence Mob violence was an occasional problem in the independent cities of the empire. Taxes, food and politics were common reasons for rioting. Religion was also a factor though it is difficult to separate from politics since they were intertwined in all aspects of life. In 361, the murder of the Arian bishop George of Cappadocia was committed by a mob of pagans. In 415 Christian mob threw objects at Orestes and, finally, Hypatia was killed by a Christian mob though politics and personal jealousy were probably the primary causes. Mobs were composed of lower-class urban dwellers, upper class educated pagans, Jews and Christians, and in Alexandria, monks from the monastery of Nitria. ==Restoration of paganism by Julian (361–363)==

Julian, who had been a co-emperor since 355, ruled solely for 18 months from 361 to 363. He was a nephew of Constantine and received Christian training. After childhood, Julian was educated by Hellenists and became attracted to the teachings of neoplatonists and the old religions. He blamed Constantius for the assassination of Julian's father, brother and other family members, which he personally witnessed being killed by the palace guards. As a result, he developed an antipathy to Christianity which only deepened when Constantius executed Julian's only remaining brother in 354. Julian's religious beliefs were syncretic and he was initiated into at least three mystery religions, but his religious open-mindedness did not extend to Christianity. Julian lifted the ban on sacrifices, restored and reopened temples, and dismantled the privileged status of the Christians, giving generous tax remissions to the cities he favored and disfavor to those who remained Christian. He allowed religious freedom and spoke against overt compulsion, but there was little other option open to him. Julian wrote that "right learning" was essential to pagan reform, and that such learning belonged only to those who showed 'piety toward the old gods'. Julian reached Antioch on July 18 which coincided with a pagan festival that had already become secular. Julian's preference for blood sacrifice found little support, and the citizens of Antioch accused Julian of "turning the world upside down" by reinstituting it, calling him "slaughterer". On the other hand, H. A. Drake says that "In the eighteen brief months that he ruled between 361 and 363, Julian did not persecute [Christians], as a hostile tradition contends. But he did make clear that the partnership between Rome and Christian bishops... was now at an end, replaced by a government that defined its interests and those of Christianity as antithetical. After Antioch, Julian would not be deterred from his goal of war with Persia, and he died on that campaign. The facts of his death have become obscured by the "war of words between Christians and pagans" which followed. It was "principally over the source of the fatal spear... The thought that Julian might have died by the hand of one of his own side... was a godsend to a Christian tradition eager to have the apostate emperor accorded his just deserts. Yet such a rumor was not solely the product of religious polemic. It had its roots in the broader trail of disaffection Julian left in his wake". ==From Jovian to Valens (363–378)==

Jovian reigned only eight months, from June 363 to February 364, but in that period, he negotiated peace with the Sassanids and reestablished Christianity as the preferred religion. Bayliss says the position adopted by the Nicene Christian emperor Valentinian I (321–375) and the Arian Christian emperor Valens (364–378), granting all cults toleration from the start of their reign, was in tune with a society of mixed beliefs. Pagan writers, for example Ammianus Marcellinus, describe the reign of Valentinian as one “distinguished for religious tolerance... He took a neutral position between opposing faiths, and never troubled anyone by ordering him to adopt this or that mode of worship ... [he] left the various cults undisturbed as he found them”. This apparently sympathetic stance is corroborated by the absence of any anti-pagan legislation in the Theodosian Law Codes from this era. Classics scholar Christopher P. Jones says Valentinian permitted divination so long as it was not done at night, which he saw as the next step to practicing magic. Valens, who ruled the east, also tolerated paganism, even keeping some of Julian's associates in their trusted positions. He confirmed the rights and privileges of the pagan priests and confirmed the right of pagans to be the exclusive caretakers of their temples. ==Ambrose, Gratian, and the Altar of Victory==

was one of the most influential advocates of paganism's destruction Ambrose and Gratian In 382, Gratian was the first to formally, in law, divert into the crown's coffers those public financial subsidies that had previously supported Rome's cults; he appropriated the income of pagan priests and the Vestal Virgins, forbade their right to inherit land, confiscated the possessions of the priestly colleges, and was the first to refuse the title of pontifex maximus. He also ordered the Altar of Victory to be removed again. The colleges of pagan priests lost privileges and immunities. Gratian wrote to Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, for spiritual advice and received back multiple letters and books. It has long been convention to see the volume of these writings as evidence Gratian was dominated by Ambrose, who was therefore the true source of Gratian's anti-pagan actions. McLynn finds this unlikely and unnecessary as an explanation: Gratian was, himself, devout, and "The many differences between Gratian's religious policies and his father's, and the shifts that occurred during his own reign, are to be explained by changed political circumstances [after the Battle of Adrianople], rather than capitulation to Ambrose". Modern scholars have noted that Sozomen is the only ancient source that shows Ambrose and Gratian together in any personal interaction. That event occurred in the last year of Gratian's reign. Ambrose crashed Gratian's private hunting party in order to appeal on behalf of a pagan senator sentenced to die. After years of acquaintance, this indicates Ambrose could not take for granted that Gratian would see him, so instead, Ambrose had to resort to such maneuverings to make his appeal. After Gratian Gratian's brother, Valentinian II and Valentinian's mother strongly disliked Ambrose and generally refused to cooperate with him, taking every opportunity to side against him. Yet, Valentinian II still refused to grant requests from pagans like Quintus Aurelius Symmachus to restore the Altar of Victory and the income of the temple priests and Vestal Virgins or to overturn the policies of his predecessor. After Gratian, the emperors Arcadius, Honorius and Theodosius continued to appropriate for the crown the tax revenue collected by the temple custodians. Urban ritual procession and ceremony was gradually stripped of support and funding. Rather than being removed outright though, many festivals were secularized and incorporated into a developing Christian calendar, often with little alteration. Some had already severely declined in popularity by the end of 3rd century. Ambrose and Theodosius I . John Moorhead says that Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan is sometimes referred to as having influenced the anti-paganism policies of the emperor Theodosius I to the degree of finally achieving the desired dominance of church over state. Alan Cameron observes that this dominating influence is "often spoken of as though documented fact". Indeed, he says, "the assumption is so widespread it would be superfluous to cite authorities". Modern scholarship has revised this view. observes that the documents that reveal the relationship between Ambrose and Theodosius seem less about personal friendship and more like negotiations between the institutions the two men represent: the Roman State and the Italian Church. According to McLynn, the events following the Thessalonian massacre cannot be used to "prove" Ambrose' exceptional or undue influence. The encounter at the church door does not demonstrate Ambrose' dominance over Theodosius because, according to Peter Brown, it never happened. According to McLynn, "the encounter at the church door has long been known as a pious fiction". Harold A. Drake quotes Daniel Washburn as writing that the image of the mitered prelate braced in the door of the cathedral to block Theodosius from entering, is a product of the imagination of Theodoret who was a historian of the fifth century. Theodoret wrote of the events of 390 "using his own ideology to fill the gaps in the historical record". ==Theodosius I (381–395)==

was the first Roman Emperor to support the suppression of Pagan practices throughout the Empire Theodosius seems to have adopted a cautious policy overall toward traditional non-Christian cults. He reiterated his Christian predecessors' bans on animal sacrifice, divination, and apostasy, but allowed other pagan practices to be performed publicly and temples to remain open. Theodosius also turned pagan holidays into workdays, but the festivals associated with them continued. A number of laws against sacrifice and divination, closing temples that continued to allow them, were issued towards the end of his reign, but historians have tended to downplay their practical effects and even the emperor's direct role in them. Most of Theodosius' religious legislation was against heresy. Modern scholars think there is little if any evidence Theodosius pursued an active and sustained policy against the traditional cults. There is evidence Theodosius took care to prevent the empire's still substantial pagan population from feeling ill-disposed toward his rule. Following the death in 388 of his praetorian prefect, Cynegius, who had vandalized a number of pagan shrines in the eastern provinces, Theodosius replaced him with a moderate pagan who subsequently moved to protect the temples. During his first official tour of Italy (389–391), the emperor won over the influential pagan lobby in the Roman Senate by appointing its foremost members to important administrative posts. Theodosius also nominated the last pair of pagan consuls in Roman history (Tatianus and Symmachus) in 391. Between 382 and 384, there was yet another dispute over the Altar of Victory. According to the Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, Symmachus requested the restoration of the altar that Gratian had removed and the restoration of state support for the Vestals. Ambrose campaigned against any financial support for paganism and anything like the Altar that required participation in pagan practices. Ambrose prevailed. Classicist Ingomar Hamlet says that, contrary to popular myth, Theodosius did not ban the Olympic games. indicates there are several reasons to conclude the Olympic games continued after Theodosius and came to an end under Theodosius II instead. Two scholia on Lucian connect the end of the games with a fire that burned down the temple of the Olympian Zeus during his reign. Anti-pagan legislation Anti-pagan legislation reflects what Brown calls "the most potent social and religious drama" of the fourth-century Roman empire. From Constantine forward, the Christian intelligentsia wrote of Christianity as fully triumphant over paganism. It didn't matter that they were still a minority in the empire, this triumph had occurred in Heaven; it was evidenced by Constantine; but even after Constantine, they wrote that Christianity would defeat, and be seen to defeat, all of its enemies - not convert them. Secondly, the laws reveal the emergence of a language of intolerance. The legal language runs parallel to the writings of the apologists, such as Augustine of Hippo and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and heresiologists such as Epiphanius of Salamis. Lastly, on the one hand the laws, and these Christian sources with their violent rhetoric, have had great influence on modern perceptions of this period by creating an impression of continuous violent conflict that has been assumed on an empire-wide scale. Archaeological evidence, on the other hand, indicates that, outside of violent rhetoric, there were only isolated incidents of actual violence between Christians and pagans. Non-Christian, (non-heretical), groups such as pagans and Jews enjoyed a tolerance based on contempt through most of Late Antiquity. The pagan historian Libanius wrote "this black robed tribe" were acting outside the law, but Brown says Theodosius did not enforce those laws. Theodosius voiced his support for the preservation of temple buildings, but passively legitimized the monk's violence by listening to them instead of correcting them, thereby failing to prevent the damaging of many holy sites, images and objects of piety by Christian zealots. However, archaeological evidence for the violent destruction of temples in the fourth and early fifth centuries around the entire Mediterranean is limited to a handful of sites. Most recorded incidents of temple destruction are known from church and hagiographical accounts which are eager to portray their subjects' piety and power. They offer vividly dramatized accounts of pious bishops doing battle with temple demons. The temples of Zeus at Apameia and of Marnas at Gaza City are said to have been brought down by the local bishops around this period, but the only source for this information is the biography of Porphyry of Gaza which is considered a forgery. Trombley and MacMullen say part of why such discrepancies (between the literary sources and the archaeological evidence) exist is because it is common for details in the literary sources to be ambiguous and unclear. For example, Malalas claimed Constantine destroyed all the temples, then he said Theodisius did, then he said Constantine converted them all to churches. Civil conflict and external invasions also destroyed temples and shrines. Lavan says: "We must rule out most of the images of destruction created by the [written sources]. Archaeology shows the vast majority of temples were not treated this way". Some scholars have long asserted that not all temples were destroyed but were instead converted to churches throughout the empire. According to modern archaeology, 120 pagan temples were converted to churches in the whole empire, out of the thousands of temples that existed, and only about 40 of them are dated before the end of the fifth century. R. P. C. Hanson says the direct conversion of temples into churches did not begin until the mid fifth century in any but a few isolated incidents. In Rome the first recorded temple conversion was the Pantheon in 609. None of the churches attributed to Martin of Tours can be proven to have existed in the fourth century. ==Anti-paganism after Theodosius I until the collapse of the Western Empire==

Anti-pagan laws were established and continued on after Theodosius I until the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius II, Marcian and Leo I reiterated the bans on pagan sacrifices and divination and increased the penalties. The necessity to do so indicates that the old religion still had many followers. In the later part of the 4th century there were clearly a significant number of pagan sympathizers and crypto-pagans still in positions of power in all levels of the administrative system including positions close to the emperor; even by the 6th century, pagans can still be found in prominent positions of office both locally and in the imperial bureaucracy. In Rome, Christianization was hampered significantly by the elites, many of whom remained stalwartly pagan. The institutional cults continued in Rome and its hinterland, funded from private sources, in a considerably reduced form, but still existent, as long as the Western Roman Empire lasted. Bayliss writes that "We know from discoveries at Aphrodisias that pagans and philosophers were still very much in evidence in the 5th century, and living in some luxury. The discovery of overt pagan statuary and marble altars in a house in the heart of the city of Athens gives a very different impression from that presented by the law codes and literature, of pagans worshipping in secrecy and constant fear of the governor and bishop". ==After the fall of the Western Empire==

In 476, the last western emperor of Roman descent, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer, who became the first barbarian king of Italy. By the time the Emperor Anastasius I, who came to the throne in 491 as the first emperor required to sign a written declaration of orthodoxy before his coronation, the Goths had been Christian for over a hundred years. Peter Brown has written that, "it would be profoundly misleading" to claim that the cultural and social changes that took place in Late Antiquity reflected "in any way" an overall process of Christianization of the empire. Instead, the "flowering of a vigorous public culture that polytheists, Jews and Christians alike could share... [that] could be described as Christian "only in the narrowest sense" had developed. It is true that Christians had ensured that blood sacrifice played no part in that culture, but the sheer success and unusual stability of the Constantinian and post-Constantinian state also ensured that "the edges of potential conflict were blurred... It would be wrong to look for further signs of Christianization at this time. It is impossible to speak of a Christian empire as existing before Justinian". The Byzantine emperor Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great (527-565), enacted legislation with repeated calls for the cessation of sacrifice well into the 6th century. Judith Herrin writes that Emperor Justinian was a major influence in getting Christian ideals and legal regulations integrated with Roman law. Justinian revised the Theodosian codes, introduced many Christian elements, and "turned the full force of imperial legislation against deviants of all kinds, particularly religious". Herrin says, "This effectively put the word of God on the same level as Roman law, combining an exclusive monotheism with a persecuting authority". Justinian's government became increasingly autocratic. He persecuted pagans, religious minorities and purged the bureaucracy of those who disagreed with him. As Byzantine imperial culture became more orthodox, it led to the creation of the Monophysite church, which set Constantinople against both Rome and the Eastern provinces. "Few emperors had started so many wars or tried to enforce cultural and religious uniformity with such zeal... In the words of one historian, 'Justinian was conscious of living in the age of Justinian'. Herrin adds that, under Justinian, this new full "supremacy of Christian belief involved considerable destruction". The decree of 528 had already barred pagans from state office when, decades later, Justinian ordered a "persecution of surviving Hellenes, accompanied by the burning of pagan books, pictures and statues" which took place at the Kynêgion. Most pagan literature was on papyrus, and so it perished before being able to be copied onto something more durable. Herrin says it is difficult to assess the degree to which Christians are responsible for the losses of ancient documents in many cases, but in the mid-sixth century, active persecution in Constantinople destroyed many ancient texts. ==Evaluation and commentary==

, as a triumph of Christianity In the early 21st century, every aspect of Antiquity is undergoing revision as "a hotly debated period". What was thought to be well-known concerning the relation between society and Christianity "has been rendered disturbingly unfamiliar". In the last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty–first century, multiple new discoveries of texts and documents, along with new research (such as modern archaeology and numismatics), combined with new fields of study (such as sociology and anthropology) and modern mathematical modeling, have undermined much of the traditional view. According to modern theories, Christianity became established in the third century, before Constantine, paganism did not end in the fourth century, and imperial legislation had only limited effect before the era of the eastern emperor Justinian I (reign 527 to 565). Even periodization is debated, but late antiquity is generally thought of as beginning after the end of the Roman empire's Crisis of the Third Century (AD 235–284) and extending to about AD 600 in the West, and AD 800–1000 in the East. White says that, by Gibbon's own self-description, Gibbon was a "philosophical historian" who believed that the primary virtues of civilization were war and monarchy. Even so, historian Harold A. Drake writes that, "It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Gibbon's interpretation on subsequent scholarship". Gibbon's views developed into the traditional "catastrophic" view that has been the established hegemony for 200 years. Long, slow demise The modern alternative is the "long view", first stated by Peter Brown, whom The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity calls the "pioneer" who inspired the study of Late Antiquity as a field in itself, and whose work remains seminal. Brown used anthropological models, rather than political or economic ones, to study the cultural history of the period. This narrative imposed a firm closure within the Christian literature on what, according to Pierre Chuvin, had in reality been a "wavering century." MacMullen says this is why "We may fairly accuse the historical record of having failed us, not just in the familiar way, being simply insufficient, but also through being distorted". Jan N. Bremmer says that "religious violence in Late Antiquity is mostly restricted to violent rhetoric: 'in Antiquity, not all religious violence was that religious, and not all religious violence was that violent'". Brown contends that the fall of Rome is a highly charged issue that leads many to "tendentious and ill supported polemics". Antique Christian accounts proclaim uniform victory while some current historiography begins with the "infinite superiority" of the Roman Empire based on an "idealized image" of it, then proceeds to vivid accounts of its unpleasant, ignorant, and violent enemies (the barbarians and the Christians), which is all intended to frame a "grandiose theory of catastrophe from which there would be no return for half a millennia". The problem with this, according to Brown, is that "much of this 'Grand Narrative' is wrong; it is a two dimensional history". Legislation The Theodosian Law Code has long been one of the principal sources for the study of Late Antiquity. It is an incomplete collection of laws dating from the reign of Constantine to the date of their promulgation as a collection in 438. Religious laws are in book 16. The code contains at least sixty-six laws targeted at heretics. Most are found in Book XVI, ‘De Fide Catholica’, "On the Catholic Faith". The laws fall into three general categories: laws to encourage conversion; laws to define and punish the activities of pagans, apostates, heretics and Jews; and laws concerned with the problems of implementing the laws, that is, laws aimed at the conversion of the aristocracy and the administrative system itself. Most importantly, it details the cult activities that the emperor and the Catholic Church considered unsuitable. According to archaeologist Luke Lavan, reading law as history distorts understanding of what actually occurred during the fourth century. There are many signs that a healthy paganism continued into the fifth century, and in some places, into the sixth and beyond. Lavan and Mulryan indicate that archaeological evidence of religious conflict exists, but not to the degree or the intensity to which it was previously thought, putting the traditional catastrophic view of "Christian triumphalism" in doubt. Rita Lizzi Testa, Professor of Roman history, Michele Renee Salzman, and Marianne Sághy quote Alan Cameron as saying that the idea that religious conflict is the cause of the swift demise of paganism is pure historiographical construction. According to Salzman: "Although the debate on the death of paganism continues, scholars ...by and large, concur that the once dominant notion of overt pagan-Christian religious conflict cannot fully explain the texts and artifacts or the social, religious, and political realities of Late Antique Rome". Brown and others such as Noel Lenski and Glen Bowersock say that "For all their propaganda, Constantine and his successors did not bring about the end of paganism". It continued. Previously undervalued similarities in language, society, religion, and the arts, as well as current archaeological research, indicate that paganism slowly declined for a full two centuries and more in some places, thereby offering an argument for the ongoing vibrancy of Roman culture in late antiquity, and its continued unity and uniqueness long after the reign of Constantine. ==See also==