reading_gibbon: Chapter XVI: Early Christianity and the emperors

A run through the historical record, staring with Tacitus on Nero's blaming the Christians for the Great Fire, then Pliny on his administrative problems in Bithynia, then a long section on Cyprian (who I think gets more coverage than any other non-emperor); then a period of relaxation, which however is abruptly reversed by Diocletian (though that period of persecution seems to be more effective in the East). A rather more detailed but slightly less interesting chapter than the previous one, and I wonder if he might have been better to organise the material more chronologically across the two.