o look upon, but happy and envied.

=Confusion of Religions.=--In the century that preceded the victory of
Christianity, all religions fell into confusion. The sun was adored at
once under many names (Sol, Helios, Baal, Elagabal, and Mithra). All
the cults imitated one another and sometimes copied Christian forms.
Even the life of Christ was copied. The Asiatic philosopher,
Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in the first century (3-96), became in
legend a kind of prophet, son of a god, who went about surrounded by
his disciples, expelling demons, curing sicknesses, raising the dead.
He had come, it was said, to reform the doctrine of Pythagoras and
Plato. In the third century an empress had the life of Apollonius of
Tyana written, to be, as it were, a Pythagorean gospel opposed to the
gospel of Christ. The most remarkable example of this confusion in
religion was given by Alexander Severus, a devout emperor, mild and
conscientious: he had in his palace a chapel where he adored the
benefactors of humanity--Abraham, Orpheus, Jesus, and Apollonius of
Tyana.

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LATER EMPIRE

=Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.=--After a century of civil
wars emperors were found who were able to stop the anarchy. They were
men of the people, rude and active, soldiers of fortune rising from
one grade to another to become generals-in-chief, and then emperors.
Almost all arose in the semi-barbarous provinces of the Danube and of
Illyria; some in their infancy had been shepherds or peasants. They
had the simple manners of the old Roman generals. When the envoys of
the king of Persia asked to see the emperor Probus, they found a bald
old man clad in a linen cassock, lying on the ground, who ate peas and
bacon. It was the story of Curius Dentatus repeated after five
centuries.

Severe with their soldiers, these emperors reestablished discipline in
the army, and then order in the empire. But a change had become
necessary. A single man was no longer adequate to the government and
defence of this immense territory; and so from this time each emperor
took from among his relatives or his friends two or three
collaborators, each charged with a part of the empire. Usually their
title was that of Caesar, but sometimes there were two equal emperors,
and both had the title of Augustus. When the emperor died, one of the
Caesars succeeded him; it was no longer possible for the army to create
emperors. The provinces were too great, a