CHAPTER IX

THE HELLENIC-ROMAN PERIOD (322 B. C.–476 A. D.)

=Its Time Length.=

Greek Period, 300 years. Hellenic-Roman Period, 800 years. Middle Ages, 1000 years. Modern Period, 450 years.

We ought to appreciate at the beginning the enormous time length of this period. It seems long since modern thought began, but it was only about 450 years ago. The Hellenic-Roman Period was 800 years long, or nearly twice as long as modern times. It is, furthermore, two and a half times as long as the period which we have just been discussing,――the pure Greek period. Now the Hellenic-Roman Period and the Middle Ages together form the epoch of human history that is relatively uncreative. This is an extent of 1800 years, a long interval when compared with the 750 years of creative history, which represents the combined length of the pure Greek Period and modern times. In European history the periods of productive thought have been less than half as long as those of the unproductive. Yet we must not be misled by such statistics. History is an organic growth. Its seedtime and growth are long; its harvest is short.

=The Fall of the Greek Nation and the Persistence of its Civilization.= The 800 years after the death of Aristotle are named the Hellenic-Roman Period, because Greek civilization burst its own national boundaries and became a part of Roman civilization. The Greek nation died; its culture remained. It is no longer pure Greek, but Greek in the environment of the Roman world――it becomes Hellenism. With the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. the motherland of Greece became a prey to revolutions for 200 years. It was often the battleground of foreigners and the object of their contentions. Its government and population sank into hopeless decay. It was incorporated into the Roman empire in 146 B. C. and shared in the depressing times of the Civil Wars of the first century B. C. By becoming a part of Rome Greece lost its uniqueness but the world gained its culture as a common heritage. Its autonomy was forever gone, but its people became the teachers of mankind. In political power Greece reached its height with Alexander, in creative thought with Aristotle; then by its own momentum its civilization persisted as a missionary force to the whole world.

Illustration: THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER

(Showing the spread of Hellenism eastward, beginning 334 B. C. with Alexander’s Campaign)

The overflow of Greek civilization was first eastward, to the nations of Asia. Alexander, with his military and administrative genius, had only made a preliminary conquest of these Oriental peoples. The conquest became permanent through Greek art, learning, and institutions. In the century after Alexander the habits and customs of the East had been Hellenized. Greek schools, theatres, and baths were to be found in almost every city of the East. In the East and Egypt an inexhaustible field was opened for the founding of new centres of culture. In the kingdoms partitioned off from the old Alexandrian domain, the kings were Greek, spoke Greek, adored Greek gods, and preserved Greek fashions. Amid Asiatics they sought to maintain Greek courts, have Greek administrative officers, and be surrounded with Greek scholars. Greek colonists, soldiers, and merchants were attracted to these kingdoms in such numbers that the natives adopted the costumes, religions, manners, and even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic and became Hellenic. The Romans found there in the first century B. C. peoples like the Greeks who spoke Greek.

Greek civilization began to overflow upon the western world when, in the second century, Greece with all the other countries upon the Mediterranean was absorbed by Rome. The conquest of Greece by Rome in 146 B. C. gave currency to Greek art, letters, and morals in Roman life. That Greek civilization was not lost in this great amalgamation shows how deep and fundamental it was. The secondary nations disappeared and none remained to compete with the Greek and Latin. The result was the superimposition of Greek culture upon Roman society. At the time of the conquest of Greece, Greek scholars went to Rome in great numbers and opened schools of eloquence and literature. Later the Roman youths went to Athens to study. Art and science were gradually introduced into Rome. The old Roman house got a Greek addition. Statues and paintings were transported from Greece to Rome. Greek artists were commissioned. By 100 B. C. the great Romans were living in Greek or Oriental style. The coarsest Greeks, too, came into Italy and mingled with the Roman proletariat. Thus, with the complete Latinizing of the peninsula of Italy in the second century, an increasing Hellenism went hand in hand.

But the two civilizations never completely united. Roman adoption of Greek culture was never more than a veneer. Greek art and learning were rarely studied by the Roman except as a parade and luxury. As time went on the Roman resorted less to the classic and more to the frivolous modern products of the Greeks. For it must be remembered that when Greece was conquered by Rome, the Romans were still only peasants, soldiers, and merchants, without science, art, or philosophy. Before 150 B. C. the Roman children were taught nothing higher than reading, writing, etc. But the Roman found a culture in Greece that he liked and imitated. He kept his costume, language, and political laws, but he adopted Greek letters, art, morals, and incorporated many elements of the Greek religion into his own.

Two results came from this superimposition of Greek culture upon Roman society. On the one hand the Greek sought to create a philosophy which would make him a citizen of the world, since it was no longer an honor to be a citizen of a Greek city. On the other hand, to the Roman there came a mixed good. There was a gain to Roman literature and perhaps to jurisprudence, but a fatal loss to Roman faith and morals. On the whole Roman vulgarity was only concealed by Greek culture, except in such spirits as Scipio, Paulus, and the Gracchi, in whom culture was genuine. The Roman felt the need of rich intellectual life, and he sought it in the rich treasures and the filth of later Greek culture. The Greek culture that he found was no longer pure Greek, but Hellenism, sometimes tinged with Orientalism. It acted as a poison on the Roman and often was bitterly opposed.

=The Two Parts of the Hellenic-Roman Period.= We must not forget that, excepting the first 175 years of this period, Rome is the background upon which all philosophical movements of the time are to be traced. Upon this background two general movements are prominent, which divide the period into two parts: (1) the Ethical Period, and (2) the Religious Period.

=1. The Ethical Period=, 322 B. C.–1 A. D., had its origin in the Greek culture that was superimposed upon Roman civilization. This epoch is notable for the rise and controversies of the four celebrated philosophical Schools of Athens; the introduction of the teaching of these Schools into Roman society; and the final merging and reconciliation of these Schools in Eclecticism and Skepticism.

=2. The Religious Period=, 100 B. C.–476 A. D., arose out of the Oriental religions that swept into Rome before the beginning of this era. They were modified by their Roman environment, and intellectualized and systematized by Hellenic culture. Neo-Pythagoreanism, the Alexandrian-Judaic theosophies in the first part, Christianity and neo-Platonism in the second part of this period, are the most important philosophical results.

Note three things. (1) The spiritual life of Rome during these 800 years has its origin in imported foreign movements. The source of the ethical movement is Greek, that of the religious movement is Oriental. (2) The two movements overlap. Indeed, each from its beginning to its end covers about 600 years. More precisely the ethical movement did not disappear until about 200 A. D.; the religious movement began about 200 B. C. Ethical considerations dominate the first and religious impulses the second period. (3) The century and a half from 150 B. C. to 1 A. D. is a period of transition. It is the time when the emphasis changes from ethics to religion. It is a period of unsettled conditions both politically and intellectually. Politically it is the time of the Civil wars and the formation of the empire. Intellectually it is the time of Eclecticism and Skepticism.

=The Undercurrent of Skepticism in the Hellenic-Roman Period.= If we go beneath the surface of the chronological divisions of this period, which have been given above, we shall find their significance in the undercurrent of Skepticism, which runs from the beginning to the end of the period, and includes both its ethical and religious phases. “Skepticism” is a word with a history of its own, but, as philosophically used, it means the disbelief in the possibility of true knowledge. Skepticism was the fundamental frame of mind that gradually grew to conscious expression in the entire ancient world, although it was entirely at variance with the spirit of the Greek culture that had been superimposed upon that world. As an undercurrent――a widespread feeling――Skepticism pervaded the whole period, while at different times and places it appeared distinctly on the surface. These were 800 years of lack of confidence in the power of the human reason, but the really negative character of the time is often concealed by dogmatic teachings of the philosophical Schools. Dogmatic Skepticism does not appear except with reference to the positive teachings of the Schools, and then it appears conspicuously. The successive stages of Skepticism can have their clear outline, therefore, only after the positive philosophical teachings, contemporary with it and opposed by it, have been understood. This is the reason for treating the Skeptics after and not before the Schools. The reader will, however, lose the whole meaning of the Hellenic-Roman Period if he does not see that it is fundamentally Skeptical; that in the Ethical Division the Schools furnished the occasion of its appearance, and that in the Religious Division religious faith rose because Skepticism had taken possession of the field of knowledge. The ethical Schools stood as the last representatives of the old Greek rationalism of the Systematic Period, but even they yielded to the Skeptical spirit of the time. Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism seek the same end,――the withdrawal of the individual from the world and his exaltation above his environment. All three valued science only so far as it would help ethical conduct. Skepticism alone was avowedly antagonistic to intellectual ideals. The strength of Skepticism appears more evident when we look at its growth during this period. At the end of the Ethical Period the Schools weakened and we find a century and a half (150 B. C.–1 A. D.) of Skepticism and Eclecticism. There then followed at the beginning of this era the Religious Period. Man then turned to religion because he was profoundly skeptical of the trustworthiness of the reason――he felt that it was so untrustworthy as to be unable to furnish him even a true theory of moral conduct.

The Skeptical undercurrent of the Hellenic-Roman Period was the concentration of all the negative results of the Greek Sophists. It therefore had more than one point of departure,――the philosophies of Protagoras, of the Megarian, Cynic, and Cyrenaic Schools. This Sophistic undercurrent fed popular thought during the days of Plato and Aristotle. It took its formal beginning contemporary with the rise of the Stoic and Epicurean Schools; and in Athens, Alexandria, and Rome there rose to the surface the problem of the possibility of human knowledge. Formally it modified its sweeping negations, when it came in contact with the pressing needs of morality and of spiritual retirement, but it was ever present as the significant attitude of the time. While the nature of the Skeptical teaching stood in the way of its formation into a School, the doctrine itself, nevertheless, developed into a system and had its historical growth and culmination. Weber points out that the first appearance of Skepticism marks in Greece the inauguration of the age of reason and its reappearance marks the decline of the age of reason.

=The Fundamental Problem of the Hellenic-Roman Period.= The fundamental attitude of this period being Skepticism, the fundamental problem presented to it was therefore a practical one. While at heart the age doubted the validity of the human reason, it was consciously engaged in solving a very practical problem. The period had an external side that was positive. No age can be merely skeptical, especially for so long a time as 800 years. To doubt the power of the human reason is usually the occasion of shunting human energies along other lines. The form of the practical problem of this time was, _What is the highest wisdom for practical life?_ This is consonant with the skeptical attitude of the Greek as indicated by these two facts: (1) he had no longer an interest in speculation except as it afforded a basis for practical wisdom, and (2) he had no longer an interest in special sciences except as they yielded practical results. To be sure, it will be found that theories took to themselves airs of great importance during this period and that empirical sciences made rapid advances; but it will also be found that they were always in the service of practical living. The Wise Man of this age is he who has a scientific doctrine of the purposes and ends of human life.

For with his entrance into world-wide relations in the Ethical Period the Athenian found himself confronted with a very different situation from that which had engaged him during the age of Pericles. His national existence had gone and could no longer arouse his devotion, and with it his _ideal_ of a national life had crumbled to pieces. His epic polytheism had become a dim thing of the distant past, and there was no longer any external Greek institution to awaken his slumbering energies. He might, of course, go into retirement and engage in speculative inquiry, except that this was an age of pressing need. He was forced to be awake and to adjust himself as an individual to the many other peoples mixing and mingling in one common civilization. His relations were enlarged, but his interests were circumscribed. His philosophy was focused to one fundamental problem, _What, after all, is the object of human life, and what can give happiness to the individual amid the turmoil of the time?_ Philosophic studies were narrowed to ethics, logic, and physics in their practical bearing. How much narrower, then, the scope of the intellectual life of this time than that of those men of retired leisure, Plato and Aristotle!

Nor is the fundamental problem different when in the second part of this period we enter the great sweep of the religious current. The rise of religious ideals and the shift from ethics to religion was only the presentation of the practical problem of living with a different emphasis. Man was now in the dazzling glory of the empire, but that empire was unable to compensate the individual for the loss of his political importance. Rome had given to its conquered peoples an organized legal unity, but no spiritual ideal. It had none to offer. The individual was the least important factor in the organization. The present life offered little hope to the individual, except in the light of a future life. Practical wisdom thus became that which took account of the rewards and punishments that would come in the life beyond.

The Hellenic-Roman Period is kaleidoscopic and bewildering in its shiftings; but amid them all is this one conscious problem: “_Show us the man who is sure of his happiness, whatever the accidents of the world may bring to him._”

=The Centres of Hellenism.=

=1. Athens.= With the overflow of Hellenism to the east and west the active history of Athens had ceased, but she became venerated for what she had been. Greece became hallowed and Athens became the shrine of Greece in the imaginations of men. Although the city was brutally ravished, she exercised a charm over the human mind for eight hundred years after Alexander. Athens remained the intellectual centre through the entire period. It became the conservative university town, where philosophy and rhetoric were taught. It is remarkable how many Oriental philosophers came to Athens to teach, how many youths from the whole world came to be taught. The rhetorical schools, such as that of Isocrates, did much toward making Athens the centre of culture, and they offered for many years the highest practical training to Greek, Roman, and Oriental. Besides the rhetorical were the philosophical or dialectical schools, which debated privately questions of speculative metaphysics. These did not offer public training, but groups of students were taught in the grounds attached to gymnasia. Four principal philosophical schools were thus formed,――the Academy of Plato, the Lyceum of Aristotle, the Porch of the Stoics, and the Gardens of Epicurus. In the first two we have had especial interest in the previous period. All four, and especially the Stoic and Epicurean schools, will engage our attention in this period. They are known in history as “the Schools.” (See map for their location in Athens.) There were many minor schools in Athens which later became religious cults. These Schools lost their original interest in speculative inquiry, and in this period devoted themselves to the exposition of the teaching of their respective founders on ethical lines. The University of Athens was built upon the four Schools. Its chairs were endowed by Hadrian and the Antonines in the second century A. D. It grew to have an elaborate organization. It was abolished by Justinian in 529 A. D.

=2. Alexandria.= There were many other centres of Hellenism and of other learning at this time,――Rhodes, Antioch, Alexandria, ♦Pergamos, Tarsus,――but none of these could be said to rival Athens in the veneration of men. Some were much more active and creative than Athens. Alexandria surpassed Athens and all other cities as the centre of the natural sciences in the Ethical Period and of religions in the Religious Period. Here, too, rather than at Athens, were to be found the real interpreters of Plato and Aristotle. Nothing in ancient times can be compared to the wonders of the museum of Alexandria, which was its university. Scholars of every nation were entertained here at the public expense. A vast botanical garden, a zoölogical collection, an anatomical museum, an astronomical observatory, a library of seven hundred thousand volumes were here. Here Euclid (290 B. C.) wrote his geometry, Eratosthenes pursued his astronomical, geographical, and historical labors, Apollonius wrote his treatise on conic sections; and here were made the observations that led to the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Here Ptolemy and his school formulated the system of astronomy which was authoritative for fifteen hundred years. Here the Christian theologians were educated, and from this city neo-Platonism sprang. Literature and art, history, philology and criticism flourished. The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. All religions were welcomed. Buddhist, Jew, Greek, and Egyptian mingled, and comparative theology rose to be a science.

=General Characteristics of the Ethical Period= (322 B. C.–1 A. D.)――On the death of Aristotle the hitherto compact body of Greek thought disintegrated into its several elements. Theoretical and practical knowledge, which had been so successfully fused in the great systems of Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle, became separated. The whole tendency of the time was toward segregation.

=1. The Abandonment of Metaphysical Speculation.= The theoretical side of philosophy, which had been so successfully completed by the great Greek masters, now became subordinated and almost completely lost to view. _Metaphysical speculation was neglected_ except as it threw light on the practical sciences――on ethics and the natural sciences. Knowledge was no longer loved for its own sake.

=2. The Growth of Science.= Since theory was regarded as completed, _attention was naturally turned upon the details of erudition and the specializing of science_. The natural sciences survived the systems of philosophy because of their usefulness. There was great interest in investigations in mathematics, natural science, grammar, philology, literary history and general history――and all with very rich results. It was the time of commentaries, criticism, collaboration of the work of the past and completion of the special work begun by the past. By far the greater number of the so-called “philosophers” of this time are connected with special science and literature, and not with metaphysics.

It was in the Greek Islands and Egypt (Alexandria) that this advance was made. Nevertheless, it must be said that the advance in science was a good deal restricted. The empirical sciences are dependent on observation and experiment, and these opportunities were wanting at this time. Good progress was, however, made in mathematics and the sciences dependent on reasoning. Reasoning alone is incapable of advancing a science like physics, for physics depends on investigation. But even the prevalent skepticism of the time could not doubt the truths of mathematics.

=3. Ethics became the Central Interest.= For the first time in the history of European thought ethics was no longer a part of politics. In the time of the autonomous Greek states ethics and politics were two sides of the same question both in theory and practice. Ethics and politics were not disjoined even by the Sophists, who nevertheless paved the way for the divorce of the two. Now for the first time ethical questions have become such that the individual must disregard the iron-bound political situation and answer them entirely with reference to himself. The decadent Greek state was no longer a moral entity in the eyes of the people, nor could the concentration of government in Rome raise the state to moral dignity. Moreover, life had become cosmopolitan. The nations were commingling. Ethics must meet the needs of men as human beings, and not as Athenians, Spartans, or Romans. Vices had become cosmopolitan and virtues must needs be cosmopolitan also. But cosmopolitanism is in the last analysis only individualism. The man who conceives his duty so large that it embraces the whole world is usually cold to any special interests except his own. The Roman dictators and afterwards the emperor were the personification of this cosmopolitan individualism which the subjects imitated so far as they could.

Thus the public life was in danger of being swamped by private interests and mere enjoyment, by gain and the struggle for existence. The old belief in the gods, the vigorous political activity for great ends, the pleasure in free scientific inquiry had disappeared. The only refuge for the reflective mind was within itself and the study of its own moral problems. Yet for this a definite science of ethics was necessary, if the individual was to be systematically independent of external things. Plato and Aristotle had prepared the way for such retirement, and the tendency toward ethical separation from the world of political events was an aspect of the cosmopolitanism of the time. Ethical individuality and cosmopolitanism go together. The development of the inner life belongs to those individuals who dwell together in spiritual community. The same cosmopolitanism was sought by the skeptics of the period through the abandonment of all knowledge.

=The Schools.= The beginning of the Ethical Period is marked by the rise of the Schools into prominence, the end of that period by the fusion of the Schools with one another through either eclecticism or skepticism. At the beginning of the period each School had its distinctive doctrine and was in open controversy with the others; at the end their doctrines were much alike. The Epicurean School was an exception, for it always remained isolated from the other Schools. While each School had a host of notable representatives, it would be difficult to find a creative thinker among them.

Illustration: MAP OF ATHENS, SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE FOUR SCHOOLS

(The Academy was three quarters of a mile from the city, the Lyceum just outside the city, while the Porch was a colonnade on the market place (Agora). The location of the Gardens is not precisely known, but it was on the road to the Academy, just inside the walls.)

We have already given the names of the four Schools: the Stoic or the Porch, the Epicurean or the Gardens, the Aristotelian (Peripatetic) or the Lyceum, the Platonic or the Academy. The Stoic and Epicurean are called the New Schools in contrast with the Lyceum and the Academy, which are called the Old Schools. The New Schools were of Asiatic rather than Greek origin, and the Old Schools departed very much from the teaching of their founders; so that we find a very different kind of philosophy taught in all four Schools from that taught by the great Greek Systematizers. All the Schools were Sophistic rather than Socratic, and may be characterized as the revival of Greek Sophistry. Besides these Schools there was the group of Skeptics, which cannot be properly called a School, for from the nature of its doctrine it could not form an organization. In influence upon the period, the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics are the most important. They eclipsed the Academy and Lyceum because with partisan clearness they could formulate the attitude of the age. The Stoic School made the most important contribution to succeeding history. The Epicurean School had the most numerous following. Although the four Schools were not endowed until the Empire, their life was most vigorous before the Empire during the Ethical Period. Succession in leadership of the Schools cannot be completely traced――even that of the Academy shows great gaps. All record of leadership in the Aristotelian, Stoic, and Epicurean Schools stops at the close of this period.

=The Old Schools――The Academy and the Lyceum.= The Academy and Lyceum have a history which in these respects is the same: (1) both abandoned the ideal of an ethical society and turned to that of individual happiness; (2) both deviated to Skepticism; (3) both afterward had a reaction from Skepticism; (4) both developed the Sophistic teaching rather than that of their founders; (5) both were in common opposition to the New Schools.

=1. The Academy.= There were three Academies after Plato――called three, because of the difference in their doctrines. Perhaps it is better to say that there were three successive epochs of the Academy.

(a) _The Older Academy_, lasting about seventy years, from 347 B. C. to 280 B. C. The successive leaders of this were Speusippus, the nephew of Plato (d. 339 B. C.), Heracleides of Pontus, Xenocrates (d. 314 B. C.), Polemo, and Crates. This Academy emphasized at first the tendency begun by Plato in the _Laws_ toward the Pythagorean numbers, and later yielded to the contemporary interest in morals.

(b) _The Middle Academy_, lasting about one hundred and fifty years, from 280 B. C. to 129 B. C. Of this epoch Arcesilaus and Carneades were the most prominent leaders. This Academy was a form of Skepticism.

(c) _The New Academy_, lasting three hundred years from 120 B. C. to 200 A. D. Among its leaders were Philo of Larissa, who was at Rome in 87 B. C., and Antiochus of Ascalon, who had Cicero as a pupil in Athens in 79 and 78 B. C. This epoch of the Academy represented a return to the dogmatism of Plato, but it shows the contemporary eclectic tendency by its including elements of Stoic and neo-Platonic teachings.

On the whole, the several epochs of the Academy failed to represent Plato’s theory of the Ideas. The Academy was at first a School of practical ethics, then a Skepticism, then an eclecticism. It was related to Plato as the lesser-Socratic schools were to Socrates. The true developer of Plato was Aristotle and not the Academies.

=2. The Lyceum.= From the death of Aristotle to 200 A. D. the Lyceum was represented by individuals. The pupils of Aristotle were distinguished from the master himself in being scientific specialists. Theophrastus (370–287 B. C.), who followed Aristotle as leader of the Lyceum, was the most complete representative of Aristotle, and an attempt to drive out the Schools in Athens in 306 B. C. failed solely by reason of the respect in which he was held. His significance lay in natural science, and his two preserved botanical works are of great importance. Eudemus of Rhodes studied history, mathematics, and astronomy. Aristoxenes studied music, ethics, psychology, and history. Dicæarchus showed the first yielding to the contemporary ethical interest by writing history on its practical side. Science was continued by the Aristotelians in Sicily, Alexandria, and the Mediterranean islands. At Athens the School was most interested in logic, dialectics, and eristics.

The history of the Lyceum was similar to that of the Academy. At first it was centred in Theophrastus, the brilliant disciple of the founder,――an administrator who knew how to give an eminent position to the Lyceum in the intellectual life of Athens. This was followed by the naturalism and pantheism of Strato. The following generations of scholarchs were absorbed in empirical investigations. Then, as in the Academy, came the reaction back to the original purpose of the founder of the Lyceum. This occurred under Andronicus (about 70 B. C.), the eleventh head of the School, and under him the original teachings of Aristotle were reproduced and defended. This went on for several centuries, until the School was merged in neo-Platonism.

=The New Schools――The Epicureans and the Stoics.= The Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics represent the dogmatic side of this period more truly than the Platonists and Aristotelians, for they give a radical expression to its social aspects. The Epicureans had less philosophical originality; but their doctrine had been born mature in their founder, and had in consequence a unity and compactness. Stoicism, on the other hand, was an eclecticism composed of the successive philosophizings of its champions through many centuries. Stoicism was represented by many independent and notable thinkers, while Epicureanism had only one original thinker,――its founder, Epicurus. Stoicism developed by changing its essentials, while Epicureanism could change only in its unessentials. Stoicism may be said to have been the characteristic philosophy of this period, from the fact that it was created and developed in Athens on the principles of Attic philosophy by men who had originated in the mixed races of the East, and by the fact that it was easily accepted and developed by the Romans. Consistent with the spirit of the Hellenic-Roman Period, it was by nature an eclecticism that became more eclectic; and as time went on its teaching approached that of the Academy and Lyceum (second century B. C.). Epicureanism, however, always remained Epicureanism. Both Stoicism and Epicureanism were centred at Athens. Epicurus opened his School in the Gardens in 307 B. C., and Zeno began his lectures in the Porch in 294 B. C. Both schools were introduced into Rome in the middle of the second century B. C., or just before the end of the Ethical Period.

Epicureanism in Rome could easily be perverted into an excuse for the luxurious tendencies of the time, and since it advocated absolute government it voiced the feeling of the new Empire――of the Emperor and the people. As a philosophy it was opportune and popular and at the same time easily misunderstood. It made no demands upon its disciples. On the other hand, Stoicism was a discipline and demanded intellectual acumen. Its insensibility to art and culture was an insuperable obstacle to its progress in Greece, but on this account it found congenial soil in Roman society. It made rapid progress among the noble families, and was especially identified with those patrician reactionaries who stood for the old régime of the Republic.

We are not surprised to find that the Stoics and Epicureans were violently opposed to each other. They were the New Schools and contesting the same ground for favor. They had the same aim and, with so much in common, their differences were naturally accentuated. In an age which Adam Smith has likened to the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, they sought as rivals to offer as an ideal the individual independent of his surroundings. The Stoic presented one means of attaining this ideal and the Epicurean another. Both tried to substitute a philosophic creed for the old religion. And the crowds that still went to the Academy and Lyceum, and were taught the old dogmatism, must have looked askance at these new dogmatic Schools. Those crowds had become second-rate men. The New Schools had at first fewer numbers, but deeper thinkers. The Greek pupils in the New Schools listened to foreigners teaching strange creeds in strange tongues. But these new rivals made their way. Not only at Athens, but at Corinth, Elis, Colophon, and Heraclea in Pontus the elegant Platonic style was being superseded by the crude aphorisms of Epicurus and the clumsy arguments of Zeno.

It will be asked, How far did these doctrines during these eight hundred years permeate the people? Did the New Schools reach the rank and file of the people to the same degree that the Sophistic teachings reached the Greeks? Are we to suppose that Stoicism and Epicureanism were common and popular philosophies? By no means. These philosophies reached the people of the Roman world no farther than Greek culture permeated Roman society. Stoicism was consciously taken up by the large patrician class. The patricians were the cultivated Romans; and Stoicism has so much in it like the Roman _gravitas_ that it formulated for the patricians their attitude in this hopeless time. Epicureanism, on the other hand, in its pure form as Epicurus taught it, or later as Lucretius poetically expressed it, could find less favor in Rome. But Epicureanism was easily perverted, and no doubt the educated voluptuaries of Rome would find in the vitiated doctrine a support and excuse for their excesses.

=A Summary of the Agreements and Differences of the Stoics and Epicureans.=

_Their Agreements._

1. Both subordinated theory to practice. 2. Both had the same purpose in their practical philosophy: (a) to gain peace of mind for the individual, (b) to gain independence of the world for the individual.

_Their Differences._

_The Stoics._ _The Epicureans._

1. Universal law is supreme. The individual is supreme.

2. Man is a thinking being. Man is a feeling being.

3. Independence is obtained Independence is obtained by by suppressing the personal idealizing the feelings through feelings. serenity.

4. The Stoics were religious, The Epicureans were anti-religious, yet both schools accepted the popular gods.

5. The world is a moral order. The world is a mechanical order.

6. The universal determines The universal is the result of the the individual. functioning of the individual.

7. The world is the expression The world is the combination of of an immanent reason. atoms.