>>513215881
a few tings
Constantine was not heavily persecuting 'pagani' yet that would be his successor. at this stage constantine was still playing both sides, see his oration to the saints where he explicitly refers to Achilles as a sort of anticipation of Jesus.
>>513217389
pagani means rural. the last pagani where in the mountains and the newer slavs where converts who settled the farmlands of the eastern empire. but yes it is frustrating to have this myth pushed that whatever Greco roman religion existed was anything but a hallow figment of past practices. people underplay how poor preservation of knowledge was at this time even the romans could not recall thier own religious traditions from a mere 100 or 200 years earlier by the time of the late republic. when Christianity rose they could not only argue that they where the true religion but also a return to form as they presented older 'pagan' oracles / poets as being influenced by Christians. even if these oracles where fabricated there was virtually no means to prove so as there was no such academic institution yet. and again why you even get hermeneutical interpretation of not only Jewish texts but Greek texts with Origen before the practice blame too taboo.
