How were the Christians killed under Rome?
Gibbon says that the first Christians confessed that the greatest part of those magistrates:who exercised in the provinces the authority of the emperor or of the senate, behaved like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to the accused Christian some legal evasion by which he might elude the severity of the laws. Gibbon tells us that the Christian historians depicted all kinds of savagery by torturers, executioners and wild animals against the Christians, but says that the inconsistencies of this testimony make it so dubious that a modern scholar could scarcely accept it at face value.
