Lactantius

…So we have Lactantius, the North African Christian who was actually teaching Latin rhetoric in Nicomedia, Diocletian's residence, when the Great Persecution began and describes its very first edict going up and someone tearing it down and being burnt as the first martyr of the persecution.…

…The story about the Cairo comes from Lactantius, who wrote a book on the deaths of the persecutors. And Lactantius, he wrote the book before he had come west, but he was using official information to describe the campaign and the battle. So this has to have been part of whatever the messaging that was sent out.…