This was in accordance with the spirit of their military maxims, which had no other means but force for the establishment of conformity.
In the winter A.D.

302-'3, the Christian soldiers in some of the legions refused to join in the time-honored solemnities for propitiating the gods.

The mutiny spread so quickly, the emergency became so pressing, that the Emperor Diocletian was compelled to hold a council for the purpose of determining what should be done.

The difficulty of the position may perhaps be appreciated when it is understood that the wife and the daughter of Diocletian himself were Christians.

He was a man of great capacity and large political views; he recognized in the opposition that must be made to the new party a political necessity, yet he expressly enjoined that there should be no bloodshed.