r the
succession, has yet passed through so many perilous changes without
greatly injuring its internal organization or its national strength.
In its moral aspect, the period under consideration may be compared to
the eighteenth century, an epoch entirely corrupt, if we form our
judgment from the memoirs, manuscripts, literature, and anecdotes of
the time, but in which, nevertheless, some families maintained the
greatest austerity of morals.

Philosophy joined hands with the better families of Rome, and resisted
nobly. The stoic school produced the lofty characters of Cremutius
Cordus, Thraseas, Arria, Helvidius Priscus, Annaeus Cornutus, and
Musonius Rufus, admirable masters of aristocratic virtue. The rigidity
and exaggeration of this school arose from the horrible cruelty of the
Caesars. The continual thought of a good man was how to inure himself
to suffering, and prepare himself for death. Lucian, in bad taste, and
Persius with superior talent, but gave utterance to the loftiest
sentiments of a great soul. Seneca the philosopher, Pliny the Elder,
and Papirius Fabianus kept up a high standard of science and
philosophy. Every one did not yield; there were a few wise men left.
Too often, however, they had no resource but death. The ignoble
portions of humanity at times got the upper hand. Then madness and
cruelty ruled the hour, and made of Rome a veritable hell.

The government, altho so fearfully unstable at Rome, was much better
in the provinces. At a distance the shocks which agitated the capital
were hardly felt. In spite of its defects, the Roman administration
was far superior to the kingdoms and commonwealths it had supplanted.
The time for sovereign municipalities had long gone by. Those little
states had destroyed themselves by their egotism, their jealousies,
and their ignorance or neglect of individual freedom. The ancient life
of Greece, all struggle, all external, no longer satisfied any one. It
had been glorious in its day, but that brilliant democratic Olympus of
demigods had lost its freshness, and become dry, cold, unmeaning,
vain, superficial, and lacking in both head and heart. Hence the
success of the Macedonian rule, and afterward of the Roman. The empire
had not yet fallen into the error of excessive centralization. Until
the time of Diocletian, the provinces and cities enjoyed much liberty.
Kingdoms almost independent existed in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor,
Lesser Armenia, and Thrace, under