With the spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire, the practice of tattooing criminals and slaves slowly diminished.

In 325 AD, Emperor Constantine abolished the practice of tattooing the faces of gladiators and slaves of labor, though the inking of their bodies to indicate their indentured status remained. Constantine, who first made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, saw the human face as a reflection of the divine, and so should not be spoiled with stigmas.

Eventually, in 787 AD, Pope Hadrian I made all tattooing forbidden in the Christian world, and it wouldn't be until the 19th century that it would return, this time evolving into the art we know it as today, instead of a mark of shame and punishment.