Firmilian was the Roman governor

Roman governor

A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many provinces constituting the Roman Empire...

 of the Iudaea Province

Iudaea Province

Judaea or Iudaea are terms used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel...

, during the third Late Roman Period of the roman rule over the region. He was the third of a succession of governors (Flavian, Urban, and Firmilian) who enforced the Diocletian Persecution

Diocletian Persecution

The Diocletianic Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman empire. In 303, Emperor Diocletian and Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding the legal rights of Christians and demanding that they comply with traditional Roman...

 at Caesarea, the province's capital, which lasted for twelve years. He is commonly referred as cruel and sadistic for torturing and killing many Christians and being heartless even to his close allies. He was beheaded for his crimes, by the emperor Maximinus

Maximinus

Maximinus II , also known as Maximinus Daia or Maximinus Daza, was Roman Emperor from 308 to 313. He was born of Dacian peasant stock to the half sister of the emperor Galerius near their family lands around Felix Romuliana; a rural area then in the Danubian region of Moesia, now Eastern Serbia.He...

’s order, as his predecessor Urban had been two years before.