Persecutions of the Church, by which are meant those at the hands of Imperial Rome, are usually reckoned 10 in number, viz., those under Nero in 64, Domitian 95, Trajan 107, Hadrian 125, Marcus Aurelius 165, Severus 202, Maximinus 235, Decius 249, Valerianus 257, and Diocletian 303; besides these there were others quite as deadly within the Church itself on the part of orthodox against heterodox, or Catholic against Protestant, and Established against Nonconformist.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Perrault, Charles * Persephone