In 235 A.D. Maximinus was the Roman Emperor. In Cappadocia the president, Seremianus, did all he could to exterminate the Christians from that province.

The principal persons who perished under this reign were Pontianus, bishop of Rome; Anteros, a Grecian, his successor, who gave offense to the government by collecting the acts of the martyrs; Pammachius and Quiritus, Roman senators, with all their families; and many other Christians; Simplicius, senator; Calepodius, a Christian minister, was thrown into the Tiber River. Martina, a noble and beautiful virgin, and Hippolitus, a Christian minister, were tied to a wild horse and dragged until he expired. During this persecution, raised by Maximinus, numberless Christians were slain without trial, and buried indiscriminately in heaps, sometimes fifty or sixty being cast into a pit together, without the least decency. The tyrant Maximinus dying, A.D. 238, was succeeded by Gordian, during whose reign, and that of his successor Philip, the Church was free from persecution for the space of more than ten years. But in A.D. 249, a violent persecution broke out in Alexandria, at the instigation of a pagan priest, without the knowledge of the emperor.