The fourth [persecution of the Christians] was under righteous Marcus Aurelius (177 AD), who persecuted the Christians because he believed the tales their enemies spread about them … (The Fifth Seal, 303-313 AD, pg. 33).

“… we find it difficult to understand why, in the second century of our era, a great emperor who was also a great philosopher should have deliberately persecuted Christianity. The difficulty arises from our overlooking the entirely different aspect under which religion presented itself to a Roman mind. It was a matter which lay, not between the soul and God, but between the individual and the State. Conscience had no place in it. Worship was an ancestral usage which the State sanctioned and enforced. … The neglect of it, and still more the disavowal of it, was a crime. An emperor might pity the offender for his obstinancy, but he must necessarily either compel him to obey or punish him for disobedience.”

Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, pp. 21-22.

The Roman historian Tacitus, not a Christian by any means, stated that an immense multitude were put to death under Nero. (The Fifth Seal, 303-313 AD, pg. 32).

“But all human efforts … did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration [burning of Rome] was the result of an order [of Nero’s]. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. … Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle … Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.”

Alfred John Church, translator, Annals of Tacitus, Bk. 15 : 44, pp. 304-305. Emphasis added.

But to see how fitting the ten brutal Roman persecutions of the Christians describes the fifth seal, we ought to know something about them (The Fifth Seal, 303-313 AD, pg. 32).

For a complete account of the ten great persecutions, see John Foxe, Book of Martyrs, Ch. 1, and Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, Ch. 2, p.31-82. All of the facts concerning the persecutions not specifically annotated, were checked against these sources.

“From the fifth century it has been customary to reckon ten great persecutions: under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian. This number was suggested by the ten plagues of Egypt taken as types (which, however, befell the enemies of Israel, and present a contrast rather than a parallel), and by the ten horns of the Roman beast making war with the Lamb, taken for so many emperors. But the number is too great for the general persecutions, and too small for the provincial and local. Only two imperial persecutions—those of Decius and Diocletian—extended over the empire; but Christianity was always an illegal religion from Trajan to Constantine, and subject to annoyance and violence everywhere. Some persecuting emperors—Nero, Domitian, Galerius, were monstrous tyrants, but others—Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Decius, Diocletian—were among the best and most energetic emperors, and were prompted not so much by hatred of Christianity as by zeal for the maintenance of the laws and the power of the government. On the other hand, some of the most worthless emperors—Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus—were rather favorable to the Christians from sheer caprice. All were equally ignorant of the true character of the new religion.”

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, pp. 38-39.