es
less hard, to stand in place of father to the fatherless. Charitable
foundations were endowed for rearing and educating poor children. The
provinces were protected against oppression, and public help was given
to cities or districts which might be visited by calamity. The great
blot on his name, and one hard indeed to explain, is his treatment
of the Christians. In his reign Justin at Rome became a martyr to
his faith, and Polycarp at Smyrna, and we know of many outbreaks of
fanaticism in the provinces which caused the death of the faithful. It
is no excuse to plead that he knew nothing about the atrocities done in
his name: it was his duty to know, and if he did not he would have been
the first to confess that he had failed in his duty. But from his own
tone in speaking of the Christians it is clear he knew them only from
calumny; and we hear of no measures taken even to secure that they
should have a fair hearing. In this respect Trajan was better than he.

To a thoughtful mind such a religion as that of Rome would give small
satisfaction. Its legends were often childish or impossible; its
teaching had little to do with morality. The Roman religion was in fact
of the nature of a bargain: men paid certain sacrifices and rites, and
the gods granted their favour, irrespective of right or wrong. In this
case all devout souls were thrown back upon philosophy, as they had
been, though to a less extent, in Greece. There were under the early
empire two rival schools which practically divided the field between
them, Stoicism and Epicureanism. The ideal set before each was nominally
much the same. The Stoics aspired to the repression of all emotion, and
the Epicureans to freedom from all disturbance; yet in the upshot the
one has become a synonym of stubborn endurance, the other for unbridled
licence. With Epicureanism we have nothing to do now; but it will be
worth while to sketch the history and tenets of the Stoic sect. Zeno,
the founder of Stoicism, was born in Cyprus at some date unknown, but
his life may be said roughly to be between the years 350 and 250 B.C.
Cyprus has been from time immemorial a meeting-place of the East and
West, and although we cannot grant any importance to a possible strain
of Phoenician blood in him (for the Phoenicians were no philosophers),
yet it is quite likely that through Asia Minor he may have come in touch
with the Far East. He studied under the cynic Crates, but he did not
neglect othe