. ("Metamorphoses," or "Golden Ass").

e. _The Archaizing Period._ This period is characterized by a conscious
imitation of the Archaic Period of the second and first centuries B.C.; it
overlaps the preceding period, and is of importance from a linguistic
rather than from a literary point of view. Of writers who manifest the
archaizing tendency most conspicuously may be mentioned Fronto, from whose
hand we have a collection of letters addressed to the Emperors Antoninus
Pius and Marcus Aurelius; also Aulus Gellius, author of the "Attic Nights."
Both of these writers flourished in the second half of the second century
A.D.

f. _The Period of the Decline_, from 180 to the close of literary activity
in the sixth century A.D. This period is characterized by rapid and radical
alterations in the language. The features of the conversational idiom of
the lower strata of society invade the literature, while in the remote
provinces, such as Gaul, Spain, Africa, the language suffers from the
incorporation of local peculiarities. Representative writers of this period
are:

Tertullian, about 160-about 240 A.D. (Christian Writer).
Cyprian, about 200-258 A.D. (Christian Writer).
Lactantius, flourished about 300 A.D. (Defense of Christianity).
Ausonius, about 310-about 395 A.D. (Poet).
Jerome, 340-420 A.D. (Translator of the Scriptures).
Ambrose, about 340-397 (Christian Father).
Augustine, 354-430 (Christian Father--"City of God").
Prudentius, flourished 400 A.D. (Christian Poet).
Claudian, flourished 400 A.D. (Poet).
Boethius, about 480-524 A.D. ("Consolation of Philosophy ").

4. Subsequent History of the Latin Language.--After the sixth century A.D.
Latin divides into two entirely different streams. One of these is the
literary language maintained in courts, in the Church, and among scholars.
This was no longer the language of people in general, and as time went on,
became more and more artificial. The other stream is the colloquial idiom
of the common people, which developed ultimately in the provinces into the
modern so-called Romance idioms. These are the Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, French, Provencal (spoken in Provence, i.e. southeastern
France), the Rhaeto-Romance (spoken in the Canton of the Grisons in
Switzerland), and the Roumanian, spoken in modern Roumania and adjacent
districts. All these Romance languages bear the same relation to the Latin
as the different groups of the Indo-European family o