The Sixth Persecution Under Maximinus A D 235
A. D. 235, was in the time of Maximinus. In Cappadocia, the president,
Seremianus, did all he could to exterminate the christians from that
province.
The principal persons who perished under this reign were Pontianus,
bishop of Rome; Anteros, a Grecian, his successor, who gave offence to
the government, by collecting the acts of the martyrs, Pammachius and
Quiritus, Roman senators, with all their families
and many other
christians; Simplicius, senator; Calepodius, a christian minister,
thrown into the Tyber; Martina, a noble and beautiful virgin; and
Hippolitus, a christian prelate, tied to a wild horse, and dragged till
he expired.
During this persecution, raised by Maximinus, numberless christians were
slain without trial, and buried indiscriminately in heaps, sometimes
fifty or sixty being cast into a pit together, without the least
decency.
The tyrant Maximinus dying, A. D. 238, was succeeded by Gordian, during
whose reign, and that of his successor Philip, the church was free from
persecution for the space of more than ten years; but A. D. 249, a
violent persecution broke out in Alexandria, at the instigation of a
pagan priest, without the knowledge of the emperor.