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I'm John Batser with Emma Sutton. This is the Rome you've never seen before.

Remember, Augustus had one weakness.

It was his daughter.

Well, the Roman Empire has one weakness, and it's Christianity.

And we're about to go to a saint, a saint who lives between the end of the second century AD

and the beginning of the third century AD in Carthage,

the destroyed city rebuilt. Her name is Perpetua, and we find her at 23 condemned as a Christian.

Emma, at this point, Pliny the younger is commanding for the Roman Empire, the governor of Carthage.

He writes Rome. He writes his emperor saying, what am I to do? Why was he flummoxed? And how was

at this point, what was the policy of the empire towards young women who said they're Christians?

So, yeah, Pliny's letter to Trajan, which was written just slightly before this,

but about 112 his letter was written is from Bethinia.

And he is baffled because technically it's not illegal to be a Christian,

but it is illegal to not worship the gods.

And so he doesn't, when people come to him and say these people are Christians,

he isn't entirely sure whether to punish them or not.

And eventually he decides that if they refuse to worship, isn't entirely sure whether to punish them or not.

And eventually he decides that if they refuse to worship the Roman gods,

then he will have to execute them as heretics, essentially,

and as traitors to the Romans,

...