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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 4412871, member: 57463&quot;]<font face="Georgia">Thanks! I went out online and did some reading: Wikipedia, of course, but also New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia; and via Wayback I found an archived page from the University of Michigan Classics Department.&nbsp; (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110330183455/http://www.umich.edu/~classics/programs/class/cc/372/sibyl/en/Decius.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110330183455/http://www.umich.edu/~classics/programs/class/cc/372/sibyl/en/Decius.html" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20110330183455/http://www.umich.edu/~classics/programs/class/cc/372/sibyl/en/Decius.html</a>)</font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><br /></font></p><p><font face="Georgia">From Wikipedia</font></p><p><font face="Georgia">&quot;Unlike some of his immediate imperial predecessors such as Philip the Arab or Maximinus who did not have extensive administrative experience before assuming the throne, Decius was a distinguished senator who had served as suffect consul in 232, had been governor of Moesia and Germania Inferior soon afterwards, served as governor of Hispania Tarraconensis between 235–238, and was urban prefect of Rome during the early reign of Emperor Philip the Arab (Marcus Iulius Phillippus).[5]&quot; citing [5] Scarre, Chris, <i>Chronicle of the Roman Emperors: the reign-by-reign record of the rulers of Imperial Rome</i>, Thames &amp; Hudson, 1995</font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><br /></font></p><p><font face="Georgia">The Catholic Encyclopedia says, in part:</font></p><p><font face="Georgia">&quot;In the administration of the internal affairs of the empire, Decius showed himself to be an unstatesmanlike theorist. He conceived the unpractical policy of reforming the morals of his time by a forcible restoration of the old religion. He revived the obsolete office of censor as a sop to the senatorial party, permitted them to name its first incumbent, whom he invested with the most autocratic powers in matters of civil service and over the private lives of the citizens. Oblivious of the changes wrought by time and the march of ideas, he pinned his faith to the almost abandoned paganism of old Rome as the solution of the problems of his time. Such sweeping reforms necessarily brought into prominence the growing power of the Christian Church, and made it clear that any attempt to realize or enforce the absolutism of earlier Roman politics must necessarily be futile as long as any considerable body of citizens professing the Christian creed was allowed the free exercise of their religion. Belief in the freedom on conscience and the higher estimate of religion found among the Christians could find no part in such schemes as those of Decius and would necessarily prove an insuperable obstacle to the complete realization of his plans. Various reasons have been assigned for the emperor&#039;s hatred of Christianity, some seeing in it an evidence of innate cruelty, others a desire to be avenged on the friends of his predecessor; but there can be little doubt that the main motives for his hostility were political, conceived not in the form of fanaticism but in purposes of political expediency.&quot; </font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><i><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04666a.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04666a.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04666a.htm</a></i></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><br /></font></p><p><font face="Georgia">If you think that was harsh. Consider this appraisal from the U of M Classics Dept:</font></p><p><font face="Georgia">&quot;The emperor Decius was a curious figure. The evidence of his actions suggests that he was deeply conservative, that he was deeply pious, that he possessed a ferocious temper, and that he was quite stupid. He seems to have yearned for the days when the empire appeared to be invincible, and he appears to have cherished the memory of Trajan and the other emperors who had made Rome great. Thus one of his first acts after assuming the throne was to take the name Trajan for himself and to issue an edict ordering all the inhabitants of the empire to sacrifice to the ancestral gods for the safety of the state. His vision of the empire may also be reflected in the remarkable series of antoniniani which were issued from the mint at Milan commemorating the deified emperors.&quot;</font>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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