ARICANDA. - An ancient city of Lycia (*Arykanda*), now a hamlet called Aruf, where the text of a curious petition sent to Maximinus was found, requesting measures of persecution against Christians. This fanatical pagan had sought, after Galerius’s edict of toleration (30 April 311), to revive persecution by every means; among other expedients he provoked complaints from various cities against the Christians and formal demands for persecution (v. Eusebius, *Historia eccl.*, IX, 4 and 7). One such was found in 1892 at A., inscribed on a stone. It dates to 311 or 312 and reads:
“To the saviours of the whole human race, the Augusti Galerius, Valerius Maximinus Daia, Valerius Constantine,
From
Aricanada - Cast from the Museo di Roma of the bilingual inscription of A. with the emperor Maximinus’s favourable reply (Latin text) to the petition (Greek text) made by the inhabitants of Lycia and Pamphylia to persecute Christians. The original marble is preserved in
ARICANDA - Cast from the Museo di Roma of the bilingual inscription of A. with the emperor Maximinus’s favourable reply (Latin text) to the petition (Greek text) made by the inhabitants of Lycia and Pamphylia to persecute Christians. The original marble is preserved in the Museum of Constantinople.
Valerius Licinianus Licinius, on behalf of the people of Lycia and Pamphylia: O most divine emperors, since your kindred gods have ever favoured those who cherish their worship and pray to them for the perpetual health of our invincible emperors, we deemed it right to appeal to your immortal majesty to demand that the Christians, who for so long have been impious and still remain so, be at last restrained and prevented by their wicked and novel cult from showing the reverence due to the gods. This will be achieved if, by your divine and eternal decree, all of them be forbidden their impious practices and be likewise compelled to practise the worship of your kindred gods and invoke them for your eternal and incorruptible majesty: which would clearly be of great advantage to all your subjects.”
A fragment of the emperor’s affirmative reply also survives.