Reinhardt Selinger’s book on Decius focuses on the ‘sacrifice edict’ issued in the early days of his reign, with a shorter first chapter examining the reign as a whole. His main argument, backed up with by an appendix containing the 47 published libelli (sacrifice certificates) with Greek texts and English translation, is that the ‘sacrifice edict’ was a supplicatio celebrating Decius’ accession.

In S.’s view, which is not at all unreasonable, the supplicatio should be connected with the issue of a series of coins commemorating divine emperors of the past. The context is the integration of his family at the heart of the imperial government when he appointed his wife Herennia Etruscilla as Augusta, and his two sons, Herennius Etruscus and Hostilianus, first as Caesars, and later the elder of the two, Herennius, as Augustus. The consecration issue commemorates eleven emperors who could be seen as role models for an emperor who had adopted the name of Trajan for himself.

S. dates the issuance of the sacrifice edict, not unreasonably, to the last half of December 249, commemorating the moment at which the senate recognised Decius as emperor. Once the emperor had achieved this recognition, he could then set his official dies imperii (55–6), resulting in an edict proclaiming an empire-wide celebration of the event and inspiring the dispatch of embassies from cities throughout the empire to congratulate the new ruler. As S. points out, reviewing 44 records of supplicationes (46–53) ranging in time from the reign of Tiberius to that of Tacitus, as well as records from the Republic, there was a very long history of such celebrations. The gods who received the sacrifice varied from place to place, but the essence of the celebration was straightforward as a city’s population would swear a public oath of loyalty while sacrifices were offered (67). Although the content of the celebration of an emperor was consistent, there could be no set day upon which a city would hold its celebration; the timing depended on the vagaries of communication across the empire (amply discussed on 74–80). The major difference between these supplicationes, in which participation by all residents of the empire was obligatory (64–5), and the one ordered by the senate on behalf of Decius was the provision that people had to obtain a certificate proving that they had performed the sacrifice.

In this case, it appears that membership of the local commissions overseeing the sacrifice varied from place to place; sometimes a priest of the imperial cult, sometimes a local magistrate, more often members of a town council, very occasionally an imperial official. But the event they oversaw appears consistent across the empire (88). The contents of sacrifice certificates typically include mention of the commission overseeing the event, the names of the people making the sacrifice, the nature of their offering, witnesses and the date. The first and fourth elements are typically written by the members of the commission, the statement of sacrifice by those making the sacrifice (or by a witness if they are illiterate) and then a statement of the witness by the witness. The response of these authorities to a refusal to comply varied, and the type of punishment could depend on the status, age and gender of the recalcitrant individual.

Having established the nature of Decius’ edict, S. turns to the issue of how the edict impacted Christians. The bishop of Rome was executed almost immediately — in January 250 — for failure to obey. Elsewhere as news of the edict arrived, Christians might go into hiding, perform the sacrifice, or purchase a certificate. The range of behaviours caused severe divisions within Christian communities, amply attested by the letters of Cyprian and other contemporaries, including bishop Dionysius of Alexandria. In the wake of the execution of Fabian of Rome as well as bishop Babylas of Antioch, some arrived at the view that the edict was directed against the church’s leadership, possibly as a result of Decius’ predecessor Philip’s goodwill towards those leaders. But it was not until the end of the third century that the sacrifice edict was viewed as a precursor to the actual persecution edicts of Valerian and Diocletian.

S.’s position here tracks closely to the view set forth in his The Mid-Third Century Persecutions of Decius and Valerian (2002), and while I might take issue on some points of detail (especially concerning Orac. Sib. 13.85–88), his presentation of the Decian edict is convincing. Much less convincing, however, is his summary of the rest of Decius’ reign, especially the Gothic war (19–20). It is problematic that he makes no reference to important discoveries and publications since 2002, such as the excellent commentaries on Dexippus by Gunther Matin (2006) and Laura Mecella (2013) or Jana Grusková’s identification of fragments of Dexippus in Vienna Code historicus gr 73, and their publication by Gunther Martin and Jana Grusková in F. Mitthof, G. Martin and J. Grusková, Empire in Crisis: Gothic Invasions and Roman Historiography (2020), with a further fragment published by Martin and Grusková in GRBS 2022. These publications are thoroughly relevant to S.’s portrait of Decius because they make it clear that Christians were not the only people to find him distasteful. Dexippus portrayed him as a liar. Evidence for Decius’ mismanagement of the campaign against the Goths in 251 is also provided by the distribution of artefacts suggesting the disintegration of the Roman army in the superb discussion of finds from the site of the battle of Abrittus near Drynovets in Bulgaria (G. Radoslovova, G. Dzanev and N. Nikolov, Archaeologica Bulgarica 15.3 (2011)).

While S.’s collection and analysis of data for the Decian edict is useful, the failure to place that evidence in a context provided by the discoveries of the last fifteen years is disappointing.