He was then made vicarius of some district, perhaps Oriens (the East, including Syria, Palestine, and, at the time, Egypt) until 303, when he was transferred to Bithynia.
The campaigners' aims were as realized in February 303 with the edicts of the Great Persecution, which expelled Christians from government service, deprived them of normal legal rights, and left them open to imprisonment and execution if they did not comply with traditional religious rites.
Hierocles was an avid enforcer of these edicts in his function as praeses of Bithynia, and again while serving as praefectus Aegypti during the late 300s or early 310s.
It is largely through incidental notes in the Christian author Lactantius' On the Deaths of the Persecutors and Divine Institutes and Eusebius of Caesarea's On the Martyrs of Palestine and Against Hierocles that we are aware of his activities.
[2] The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE) states that, as praeses, he governed Phoenice Libanensis,[3] the province on the eastern side of Mount Lebanon.
[6] Although an apparent demotion (praeses was a lower rank than vicarius, with fewer responsibilities and less prestige), the move brought Hierocles closer to the imperial court, and the real seat of power: the emperor.
[13] Adolf von Harnack, writing early in the 20th century, argued that it should be dated to before 303, since it does not contain any reference to the persecution that began in that year.
Ernst Schwartz, however, writing at about the same time, believed that Against Hierocles contained a reference to the death of Galerius, which happened in April or May 311.
[20] The unnamed individual mentioned by Lactantius who accused Jesus of having gathered a band of brigands may have been Sossianus Hierocles.