place a golden statue of his deified self in the Temple in Jerusalem, the potential sacrilege and likely war were prevented only by his timely death. The siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD led to the sacking of the temple and the dispersal of Jewish political power (see Jewish diaspora). Christianity emerged in Roman Judea as a Jewish religious sect in the 1st century AD. The religion gradually spread out of Jerusalem, initially establishing major bases in first Antioch, then Alexandria, and over time throughout the Empire as well as beyond. Imperially authorized persecutions were limited and sporadic, with martyrdoms occurring most often under the authority of local officials. The first persecution by an emperor occurred under Nero, and was confined to the city of Rome. Tacitus reports that after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, some among the population held Nero responsible and that the emperor attempted to deflect blame onto the Christians. After Nero, a major persecution occurred under the emperor Domitian and a persecution in 177 took place at Lugdunum, the Gallo-Roman religious capital. A surviving letter from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, to the emperor Trajan describes his persecution and executions of Christians. The Decian persecution of 246–251 was a serious threat to the Church, but ultimately strengthened Christian defiance. Diocletian undertook what was to be the most severe persecution of Christians, lasting from 303 to 311. In the early 4th century, Constantine I became the first emperor to convert to Christianity. He supported the church financially and made laws that favored it, but the new religion had established itself as successful prior to Constantine. Critical mass had been reached in the hundred years between 150 and 250 when Christianity moved from less than 50,000 to over a million adherents. Growth in absolute numbers occurred in the third and the fourth centuries. Constantine and his successors banned public sacrifice while tolerating other pagan practices. Constantine never engaged in a purge, there were no pagan martyrs during his reign, and pagans remained in important positions at his court. The emperor Julian attempted to revive traditional public sacrifice and Hellenistic religion, but failed to garner support from the people. His reforms were met by Christian resistance and civic inertia. From the 2nd century onward, the Church Fathers had begun to condemn the diverse religions practiced throughout the Empire collectively as "pagan." Christians of the fourth