The earliest Christians had destroyed the meat industry in Bithynia, which was taxed by
Rome.  Pliny invaded Bithynia in order to restore the animal sacrifices by torturing and killing
the followers of Jesus.

1.  The Letter of Pliny the Younger, imperial governor of the Bithynia-Pontus area in
northwestern Asia Minor to the Roman emperor, Trajan, dated 112, c.e. Pliny informs Trajan
that through torture and execution he has successfully suppressed the vegetarian Christians
who had persuaded the local population of Bithynia not to eat the corpses of slaughtered
animals, and therefore caused financial losses to the meat industry in that region of the Roman
Empire.  Who had preached in Bithynia?  The apostle Peter himself.  Pliny reports to Trajan
the emperor:

   "I ask them if they are Christians.  If they admit it I repeat the question a second and a third
time, threatening capital punishment; if they persist I sentence them to death....(6) others
named by the informer first said that they were Christians and then denied it....they all
worshipped your image and the statues of the gods and cursed Christ.... (9)....The contagion of
this superstition has spread not only in the cities, but in the villages and rural districts as well;
yet it seems capable of being checked and set right. (10) There is no shadow of doubt that the temples, which have been almost deserted, are beginning to be frequented once more, that the sacred rites which have been long neglected are being renewed, and that sacrificial victims are for sale everywhere, whereas, till recently, a buyer was rarely to be found."  Quoted from pp. 3-4,  The Letter of Pliny the Younger (62-113) to Trajan, Emperor of Rome, Christians in Bithynia, dated 112 A.D. c. e. Plin. Epp. X (ad Traj.) xcvi., Documents of the Christian Church, Selected and edited by Henry Bettensen. 2nd. Edition. Oxford University Press London Oxford New York, 1967.