ute governments have been forced to imitate it because
it has made the work of government easier for those who have it to do.

=Society in the Later Empire.=--The Later Empire is a decisive moment
in the history of civilization. The absolute power of the Roman
magistrate is united to the pompous ceremonial of the eastern kings to
create a power unknown before in history. This new imperial majesty
crushes everything beneath it; the inhabitants of the empire cease to
be citizens and from the fourth century are called in Latin "subjects"
and in Greek "slaves." In reality all are slaves of the emperor, but
there are different grades of servitude. There are various degrees of
nobility which the master confers on them and which they transmit to
their posterity. The following is the series:[172]

1. The _Nobilissimi_ (the very noble); these are the imperial
family;

2. The _Illustres_ (the notable)--the chief ministers of
departments;

3. The _Spectabiles_ (the eminent)--the high dignitaries;

4. The _Clarissimi_ (most renowned)--the great officials, also
sometimes called senators;

5. The _Perfectissimi_ (very perfect).[173]

Every important man has his rank, his title, and his functions.[174]
The only men who are of consequence are the courtiers and officials;
it is the regime of titles and of etiquette. A clearer instance has
never been given of the issue of absolute power united with the mania
for titles and with the purpose to regulate everything. The Later
Empire exhibits the completed type of a society reduced to a machine
and of a government absorbed by a court. It realized the ideal that is
proposed today by the partisans of absolute power; and for a long time
the friends of liberty must fight against the traditions which the
Later Empire has left to us.

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE

=Triumph of Christianity.=--During the first two centuries of our era
the Christians occupied but a small place in the empire. Almost all of
them were of the lower classes, workmen, freedmen, slaves, who lived
obscure lives in the multitude of the great cities. For a long time
the aristocracy ignored the Christians; even in the second century
Suetonius in his "Lives of the Twelve Caesars" speaks of a certain
Chrestus who agitated the populace of Rome. When the religion first
concerned the world of the rich and cultivated people, they were
interested simply to deride it as one only for the poor and ignorant.
It w