Didn't Nero launch Christianity?

[The Grand Nudger]

The Holy Roman Empire was well and thoroughly christian, and not particularly roman.  

Constantine, the first christian emperor, lobbied for the edict of milan, whatever that was.  Approach it in a political context, not a religious one.  It was meant to curtail social unrest. There is little to no indication that this was a response to the fictional accounts of christian persecution. Nero certainly wasn't going to win any popularity contests, nor were the christians, just not for the reasons the christians later invented.

When you see that this has been granted to [Christians] by us, your Worship will know that we have also conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases; this regulation is made that we may not seem to detract from any dignity of any religion.

This, from Lactantius, the guy who didn't know anything about those earlier persecutions, Constantines religious advisor. The "persecutors" he was speaking of were actually in the eastern roman empire (christianity was already being given the imperial treatment by this time in the western empire), the old chestnut about christian dissenters to secular authority being made to work the mines. A story which has since come under heavy scrutiny, itself.

The "history" of christianity and it's relationship with rome isn't something to take with skepticism, it is something entirely comprised of self serving propaganda, written centuries after the fact under complete and utter christian domination, from start to finish. This isn't to say that rome (or romans, for that matter) were a bunch of really nice guys, they just weren't the specific types of assholes they were made out to be as a part of christianity's foundational myth. Christianity simply wasn't relevant or noticeable to rome until some time after 115 ad...it wasn't the christianity that anyone today would have in mind. By 235 ad they were big enough that people made bids for authority as being either anti christian or pro christian, and by the 300's the emperor -was- a christian, by 380 it was the state religion and all others were in the process of being outlawed

Christianity was a slow rolling theocratic and political coup. Where officials shored up their support by appealing to urban bishops who commanded literal mobs.