* Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, from Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Diocletian was demonized by his Christian successors: Lactantius intimated that Diocletian's ascendancy heralded the apocalypse, and in Serbian mythology, Diocletian is remembered as Dukljan, the adversary of God.

Lactantius and Rome: The Making of a Christian Empire.

This argument was a type favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist.

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius was an early Christian author ( ca.

Lactantius was not born into a Christian family.

Like so many of the early Christian authors, Lactantius depended on classical models.

It can be found in Christian theologian Lactantius's Treatise on the Anger of God where Lactantius critiques the argument.

However, it appears that some contemporary and later writers, such as the Christian author Lactantius, and Sextus Aurelius Victor ( who wrote about fifty years later and from uncertain sources ), misunderstood the Tetrarchic system in this respect, believing it to have involved a stricter division of territories between the four emperors.

* Lactantius ( c. 240 – c. 320 ) Christian theologian, advisor to Constantine I

The early Christian writer Lactantius criticizes Epicurus at several points throughout his Divine Institutes.

This type of trilemma argument ( God is omnipotent, God is good, but Evil exists ) was one favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and this argument may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist.

* Lactantius, Christian writer ( d. 320 ) ( approximate date )

* Lactantius, Christian writer ( approximate date )

Lactantius recounts that Constantine and his soldiers had a vision of the Christian God promising victory if they daubed the sign of the cross on their shields.

An early Christian source, Lactantius, maintained that for some time prior to his death Valerian was subjected to the greatest insults by his captors, such as being used as a human footstool by Shapur when mounting his horse.

Many Christian writers, including Lactantius, Augustine, Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, Campanella and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola considered Hermes Trismegistus to be a wise pagan prophet who foresaw the coming of Christianity.

The Christian rhetor Lactantius suggested that Maximian shared Diocletian's basic attitudes but was less puritanical in his tastes, and took advantage of the sensual opportunities his position as emperor offered.

Christian tradition, especially Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea, claims that Constantine fought under the labarum in that battle, revealed to him in a dream.

While he was not counted under the persecutors of the Christians by early sources like Lactantius, under the influence of the official propaganda later Christian tradition framed Maxentius as hostile to Christianity as well.

Lactantius ( early Christian author 240 – 320 AD ) about the Getae belief in Zalmoxis provide an approximate translation of Julian the Apostate writing, who put these words in Traian's mouth:

The Christian author Lactantius, claiming the late Republican polymath Varro as his source, describes her as Faunus ' wife and sister, named Fenta Fauna, or Fenta Fatua ( Fenta " the prophetess " or Fenta " the foolish ").

Lactantius, an early Christian author ( ca.

Many Christian writers, including Lactantius, Augustine, Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, Campanella and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola considered Hermes Trismegistus to be a wise pagan prophet who foresaw the coming of Christianity.

* Lactantius – a rhetorician and Christian apologist, tutor to Crispus

Renaissance Neo-Platonists, such as Marsilio Ficino, whose translations of Plato were still used into the nineteenth century, attempted to reconcile Platonism with Christianity, according to the suggestions of the early Church fathers, Lactantius and Saint Augustine.

Other early premillennialists included Pseudo-Barnabas, Papias, Methodius, Lactantius, Commodianus Theophilus, Tertullian, Melito, Hippolytus of Rome, Victorinus of Pettau and various Gnostics groups and the Montanists.

" The early Christian author Lactantius called her Fenta Fauna and said that she was both the sister and wife of Faunus ; according to Lactantius, Fatua sang the fata, " fates ," to women as Faunus did to men.

In the preface to De revolutionibus, Nicolaus Copernicus mocked Lactantius, an early Christian author ( ca.

Lactantius at the opening of the 4th century is the first to do this, but Augustine treats him openly with respect.

The earliest extant manuscripts of the Odes of Solomon date from around the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th century: the Coptic Pistis Sophia, a Latin quote of a verse of Ode 19 by Lactantius, and the Greek text of Ode 11 in Papyrus Bodmer XI.

The sibyls of Antiquity were increased to ten in Lactantius ' Divine Institutions ( i. 6 ) a 4th century work quoting from a lost work of Varro, ( 1st century BCE ).

At the beginning of the 3rd century, it is adopted by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen of Alexandria, later by Methodius, Cyprian, Lactantius, Dionysius of Alexandria, and in the 5th century by Quodvultdeus.

Before the 18th century, the Odes were only known through Lactantius ' quotation of one verse and their inclusion in two lists of religious literature.

Denis Van Berchem, of the University of Geneva, proposed that Eucherius ' presentation of the legend of the Theban legion was a literary production, not based on a local tradition ; by isolating its hagiographic conventions from the anachronisms of local narrative elements, he sought to demonstrate that Eucherius derived his formulas from Lactantius and Orosius and that the decimation was an anachronism: the practice of decimation had not been practiced for at least a century ( see Ammianus Marcellinus for Julian's misinterpretation of decimation ) and that service by Christians in the legions before Emperor Constantine I was relatively rare.

The point of the work is to describe the deaths of the persecutors of Christians: Nero, Domitian, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and the contemporaries of Lactantius himself, Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Maximinus.

Diocletian was conservative in matters of religion, a man faithful to the traditional Roman pantheon and understanding of demands for religious purification, but Eusebius, Lactantius and Constantine state that it was Galerius, not Diocletian, who was the prime supporter of the purge, and its greatest beneficiary.

There are suggestions in the Panegyrici Latini and Lactantius ' account that Diocletian arranged plans for his and Maximian's future retirement of power in Rome.

Lactantius criticized Diocletian for an excessive increase in troop sizes, declaring that " each of the four strove to have a far larger number of troops than previous emperors had when they were governing the state alone ".

The most important ancient sources for the battle are Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum 44 ; Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History ix, 9 and Life of Constantine i, 28-31 ( the vision ) and i, 38 ( the actual battle ); Zosimus ii, 15-16 ; and the Panegyrici Latini of 313 ( anonymous ) and 321 ( by Nazarius ).

Some sources ( Lactantius, Epitome ) state that Galerius hated Maxentius and used his influence on Diocletian that Maxentius be ignored in the succession ; maybe Diocletianus also thought that he was not qualified for the military duties of the imperial office.

The Edict was criticized by Lactantius, a rhetorician from Nicomedia, who blamed the emperors for the inflation and told of fighting and bloodshed that erupted from price tampering.

Copernicus is blamed for having omitted to say that Lactantius had been the exception rather than the rule, and thus for having contributed to the flat-Earth myth.

Eusebius, Lactantius, and Constantine each allege that Galerius was the prime impetus for the military purge, and its prime beneficiary.

Lactantius states that Galerius hungered for a higher position in the imperial hierarchy.