314 ---Immediately after its full legalisation, the Christian Church attacks the Gentiles: The Council of Ancyra denounces the worship of the Goddess Artemis.
324 ---At Dydima, Asia Minor, Constantine sacks the Oracle of God Apollo and tortures its Pagan priests to death. He evicts the Gentiles from Mt. Athos and destroys all local Hellenic Temples.
326 ---Emperor Constantine, following the instructions of his mother Helen, destroys the Temple of the God Asclepius in Aigeai of Cilicia and many Temples of the Goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem, Aphaca, Mambre, Phoenice, Baalbek, etc..
330 ---Constantine steals the treasures and statues of the Pagan Temples in Greece to decorate Nova Roma (Constantinople), the new capital of his Empire.
335 ---Constantine sacks many Pagan Temples of Asia Minor and Palestine and orders the execution by crucifixion of “all magicians and soothsayers". Martyrdom of the neoplatonist philosopher Sopatros.
We have gotten off topic here, but there are so many mistakes in this list, I feel I have to correct some.
Firstly, a Christian council denouncing Pagan worship hardly constitutes persecution. This was obviously not official government policy.
Regarding Constantine and the Pagans: He did not institute any suppression of Paganism. Constantine closed two temples in his reign, notably a temple of Aphrodite in Lebanon (on account of prostitution) and had the practice of Eunuch priests ended (he did execute a few as well in the process), hardly a persecution. He also removed the altar of Victory from the senate.
But Statues of the old gods were still erected in his reign on government orders for his subjects (see Zosimus) and the official sacrifice and government temple subsidies went on as before.
He did loot artwork and so forth for Constantinople, but this was standard practice at the time when founding a city. Besides those were public artworks and were therefore only moved to a new public area, so it can hardly be called looting.
On balance according to both Christian (Eusebius) and Pagan sources, Constantine did not end nor restrict pagan worship nor destroyed temples more than a standard emperor would have.
On Sopater of Apamea: He was one of Constantine's many Pagan Philosopher friends. He died due to court machinations, not on account of his faith. Hardly a pagan martyrdom. (However the official charge was for practicing magic, but all the historians at the time agree this was just a trumped up charge)
341 ---Emperor Constas, son of Constantinus, persecutes "all the soothsayers and the Hellenists". Many Gentile Hellenes are either imprisoned or executed.
346 ---New large-scale persecutions of the Gentiles in Constantinople. Banishment of the famous orator Libanius, who is accused of being a "magician".
353 ---An edict of Constantius decrees the death penalty for all forms of worship involving sacrifice and "idols".
354 ---A new edict of Constantius orders the closing of all Pagan Temples. Some of them are profaned and turned into brothels or gambling rooms. Executions of Pagan priests. The first burning of libraries in various cities of the Empire. The first lime factories are built next to closed Pagan Temples. A large part of Sacred Gentile architecture is turned into lime.
356 ---A new edict of Constantius orders the destruction of the Pagan Temples and the execution of all "idolaters".
357 ---Constantius outlaws all methods of Divination (Astrology not excluded).
359 ---In Skythopolis, Syria, christians organise the first death camps for the torture and execution of arrested Gentiles from all around the Empire.
That's just a small sample of the first half century.
I believe they are here talking of Emperor Constantius II?
There is no record of large scale persecutions under this emperor of anything other than Orthodox Christianity. No Pagan persecution occurred.
Constantius II remained Pontifex Maximus until his death, like his father. He appointed pagan priests to empty temples in North Africa, never acted against the vestal virgins or any of the Priestly colleges in Rome and no record of any complaint by pagan senators of their treatment can be found from his reign (the first of many such complaints occurs about 20 years after his death).
He did however end government subsidies to the pagan temples and ended official sacrifices and rites. With the collapse of the government funded rites, certain private individuals tried to infiltrate those old temples to do their sacrifices. Constantius then completely closed those temples and forbade sacrifice within them on pain of death (in 353).
As these large government buildings now stood empty, they were converted into law courts etc or fell in disrepair and were used for building materials as was the practice at the time. There was no "profaning" of sacred sites, merely repurposing of already abandoned ones.
Constantius however did pass a law making it illegal to vandalise pagan sites and placed those sights under the authority of their priests. Hardly the work of a persecutor of pagans.
Libanius was never sent into exile on account of his beliefs. All records show him living where and when he chooses.
There were no death camps erected to kill pagans nor any large scale killing of pagan priests. That is completely untrue and not supported by any historical writing I have ever come across.
The outlawing of Divination etc. was standard roman practice. Every now and then the Emperors use to do it, so if that is persecution of pagans, than Augustus, Tiberius, Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian etc. all persecuted pagans.
This Rassias is a very suspect, unreliable and down right incorrect source, I am afraid.
After this came Julian the Apostate's attempts to restore official pagan worship, which of course failed. The tolerant atmosphere however continued under the next few Emperors. Gratian then closed the priestly colleges in Rome and ended the Vestal Virgins, but this was to appropriate their incomes, not really based on religious reasons.
The first persecutions of Pagans in the west started under Valentinian II in 391 when he forbade private sacrifices and prohibited the visiting of temples. This effectively outlawed Paganism, but no suppression or killings were carried out.
The real persecution of Paganism started under Theodosius I with the Theodosian decrees in 389-391, where he outlawed all sacrifices and temple visits in the eastern half of the empire, extending them to the rest in 392 when he became sole emperor. He actively encouraged and participated in the destruction of temples and holy images and those caught offering sacrifices were put to death.
Following Theodosius, the next emperors to the end of the Roman period merely enforced his decrees and gradually Paganism disappeared as the last pagans were forced underground and all eventually converted.
These persecutions were however the death knell of a slowly dying system. Christianity had been growing rapidly and replacing Paganism everywhere since its birth. At Constantine's accession the Christian population was probably about 20%, but by the time of the beginning of the pagan persecutions, most of the population had been largely Christianised (at least in the cities). It is estimated that in 300 for in stance the entire area of Lower Egypt was already Christian and the only thing maintaining the continued existence of the temples there was the government subsidy and their land holdings.
Just as Christians sometimes exaggerate their persecutions at the hand of the Romans, there is a tendency to today exaggerate the suppression of Paganism at the hand of the Christians. It was largely a coup-de-grace to a corpse. Even the much vaunted suppression of the philosophy schools is nonsense as philosophy continued to be taught. They merely closed those that had taken on a religious dimension and largely merely become religious institutions (even Plato's Academy, sadly, had merely become a Neoplatonist temple at this stage). If Paganism had been vibrant and alive, then no amount of persecution would have supressed it, yet it is gone. Christianity flourished even under the (admittedly short) periods of active persecution, which shows us its vibrancy and the deep need it filled in the populace.
Do not try in a false sense of 'were just as bad as they are' to invent some large scale persecution. The record does not support this.
