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.

The Christians, who were blamed for the troubles of the past century, were furiously persecuted … (The First Four Seals: 96-300 AD, pg. 28).

Diocletian’s intent in pursuing the persecution of the Christians was to eliminate them entirely, as most non-Christian Romans blamed them for the troubles of the last century. (The Fifth Seal: 303-313 AD, pg. 32.)

“Notwithstanding the efforts of the heathens to exterminate the Christians, and abolish their mode of faith, yet they increased so greatly as to become formidable by their numbers … and particularly excited the hatred of Galerius, the adopted son of Diocletian, who, stimulated by his mother, a bigoted pagan, persuaded the emperor to commence a persecution. It accordingly began on the 23rd of February, A.D. 303, that being the day on which the Terminalia were celebrated, and on which, as the pagans boasted, they hoped to put a termination to Christianity.”

John Foxe, Book of Martyrs, p. 53.

“In A.D. 250 the most violent persecution the church had yet faced was instigated by the emperor Decius (249-251). A general from the Danubian frontier, Decius was determined to have no nonsense from the Christians. In his eyes, they were the enemies of the empire. Their atheism was responsible for the many troubles in the realm.”

Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, pp. 74-75, emphasis added.

“The common people also, with their polytheistic ideas, abhorred the believers in the one God as atheists and enemies of the gods. They readily gave credit to the slanderous rumors of all sorts of abominations … practiced by the Christians at their religious assemblies and love-feasts, and regarded the frequent public calamities of that age as punishments justly inflicted by the angry gods for the disregard of their worship.”

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, p. 43.

See also Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, pp. 37-45, for the full discussion of Rome’s policy toward religions in general and Christianity in particular, and the causes of Christian persecution.

From 303 to 313 AD [was] the time of the tenth, worst, and last official persecution of the Christians by the Roman state (The Fifth Seal, 303-313 AD, pg. 32).

“All former persecutions of the faith were forgotten in the horror with which men looked back upon the last and greatest: the tenth wave … of that great storm obliterated all the traces that had been left by others. The fiendish cruelty of Nero, the jealous fears of Domitian, the unimpassioned dislike of Marcus, the sweeping purpose of Decius, the clever devices of Valerian, fell into obscurity when compared with the concentrated terrors of that final grapple, which resulted in the destruction of the old Roman Empire and the establishment of the Cross as the symbol of the world’s hope.”

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, pp. 66.

Guerber writes that it was “the worst and bloodiest that had yet been known” of the Christian persecutions. (The Fifth Seal, 303-313 AD, pg. 33.)

H. A. Guerber, The Story of the Romans, p. 267.

The traditional interpretation places the fifth seal immediately following the events of the four horsemen, or from 303 to 313 AD, the time of the tenth, worst, and last official persecution of the Christians by the Roman state (pg. 32, The Fifth Seal, 303-313 AD).

“We naturally, however, look for the fulfillment of it [the fifth seal] in some period succeeding those designated by the preceding symbols. … in a period succeeding that represented , under the fourth seal, by Death on a pale horse.”

Albert Barnes, Notes on … Revelation, p. 160.