Great Fire of Rome in the context of "First-century"

Early Christians were heavily persecuted throughout the Roman Empire until the 3rd century. Although Christianity initially emerged as a small Jewish movement in 1st-century Judaea, it quickly branched off as a separate religion and began spreading across the various Roman territories at a pace that put it at odds with the well-established Roman imperial cult, to which it stood in opposition; Christians were vocal in their expressions of abhorrence towards the beliefs and practices of Roman paganism, such as deifying and making ritual sacrifices to the Roman emperor or partaking in other methods of idolatry. Consequently, the Roman state and other members of civic society routinely punished Christians for treason, various rumoured crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing an alien cult that drove many Roman people to apostasy in favour of Jesus Christ. According to Tacitus, the first wave of organized persecution occurred under Nero (r. 54–68), who blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in 64. A number of mostly localized persecutions occurred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180). After a lull, persecution resumed under Decius (r. 249–251) and Trebonianus Gallus (r. 251–253). The Decian persecution was particularly extensive, as Decius strived to restore the Roman golden age in part by forcing pagan practices upon the Christian community. Another wave of persecution began under Valerian (r. 253–260), but ceased abruptly after he was captured and taken prisoner by the Sasanian Empire during the Battle of Edessa of the Roman–Persian Wars. Under his successor Gallienus (r. 253–268), whose reign was marred by rapidly escalating military conflicts of the Crisis of the Third Century, the first ever decree of tolerance was issued for Christian practices and places of worship, although it stopped short of recognizing Christianity as a religion with legal status.

Emperor Diocletian (r. 283–305) began the Diocletianic persecution, which was the final and the most severe wave of persecution of Christians by the Roman state. It was enforced until the accession of Galerius (r. 305–311), who issued the Edict of Serdica, and the death of Maximinus Daza (r. 310–313). After Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) defeated his rival Maxentius (r. 306–312) at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312, he and his co-emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, which decriminalized Christianity and suppressed pagan populations throughout the Roman Empire. In 380, Theodosius I (r. 379–395) issued the Edict of Thessalonica, officially establishing Christianity as the Roman state religion. It was also during the reign of Theodosius I that pagan practices were overtly deemed punishable offenses, which laid the framework for early Byzantine anti-pagan policies.

The Basilica of Saint Clement (Italian: Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano) is a Latin Catholic minor basilica dedicated to Pope Clement I located in Rome, Italy. Archaeologically speaking, the structure is a three-tiered complex of buildings: (1) the present basilica built just before the year 1100 during the height of the Middle Ages; (2) beneath the present basilica is a 4th-century basilica that had been converted out of the home of a Roman nobleman, part of which had in the 1st century briefly served as an early church, and the basement of which had in the 2nd century briefly served as a mithraeum; (3) the home of the Roman nobleman had been built on the foundations of republican era villa and warehouse that had been destroyed in the Great Fire of AD 64.

Roman historian and politician Tacitus referred to Jesus, his execution by Pontius Pilate, and the existence of early Christians in Rome in his final work, Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44. The context of the passage is the six-day Great Fire of Rome that burned much of the city in AD 64 during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero. The passage is one of the earliest non-Christian references to the origins of Christianity, the execution of Christ described in the canonical gospels, and the presence and persecution of Christians in 1st-century Rome.

There are two points of vocabulary in the passage. First, Tacitus may have used the word "Chrestians" (Chrestianos) for Christians, but then speaks of "Christ" (Christus) as the origin of that name. Second, he calls Pilate a "procurator", even though other sources indicate that he had the title "prefect". Scholars have proposed various hypotheses to explain these peculiarities. The scholarly consensus is that Tacitus's reference to the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate is both authentic, and of historical value as an independent Roman source. However, Tacitus does not reveal the source of his information. There are several hypotheses as to what sources he may have used.

Grotesque is an adjective often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks. In art, performance, and literature, however, grotesque may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes an audience feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity.

The English word first appears in the 1560s as a noun borrowed from French, itself originally from the Italian grottesca (literally "of a cave" from the Italian grotta, 'cave'; see grotto), an extravagant style of ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered at Rome at the end of the fifteenth century and subsequently imitated. The word was first used of paintings found on the walls of basements of ruins in Rome that were called at that time le Grotte ('the caves'). These 'caves' were in fact rooms and corridors of the Domus Aurea, the unfinished palace complex started by Nero after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, which had become overgrown and buried, until they were broken into again, mostly from above. Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was long used largely interchangeably with arabesque and moresque for types of decorative patterns using curving foliage elements. The word has been used as an English adjective since at least the 18th century.