The changing relationship between early Christians and leaders of the roman empire started with Pliny the young who was a friend of emperor Trajan and an extremely respected roman official. Pliny was placed in power as the governor and one of his duties was to maintain order because the people were complaining that the temples are empty and no one was buying the certain thing for the gods. Pliny was forced to deal with the Christians as criminals. So he came up with the strategy of asking the Christians if they were Christian if they said yes he would ask them again and tell them that they would be executed and if they still say yes then they would be executed. Pliny saw the Christian as their own religion and therefore couldn’t be protected
