n the second century, profoundly
influenced their own and subsequent times.

*Philosophy.* As we have seen, the doctrines of Stoicism continued to
appeal to the highest instincts of Roman character. Besides Seneca and
Marcus Aurelius this creed found a worthy exponent in the ex-slave
Epictetus, who taught between 90 and 120 A. D. at Nicopolis in Epirus.
With Plotinus (204-270 A. D.), Greek philosophy became definitely
religious in character, resting upon the basis of revelation and belief,
not upon that of reason.

*Art.* Roman art found its chief inspiration in, and remained in close
contact with, Roman public life. The artists of the principate may well
have been Greeks, but they wrought for Romans and had to satisfy Roman
standards of taste. Realism and careful attention to details may be said
to be the two great characteristics of Roman art. This is true both of
Roman sculpture, which excelled in statues, portrait busts, and the
bas-reliefs depicting historical events with which public monuments were
richly decorated, and of the repousse and relief work which adorned table
ware and other articles of silver, bronze and pottery. The Roman fondness
for costly decorations is well illustrated by the elaborateness of the
frescoes and the mosaics of the villas of Pompeii, and other sites where
excavations have revealed the interiors of Roman public and private
buildings. The erection of the many temples, basilicas, baths, aqueducts,
bridges, amphitheatres and other structures in Rome, Italy and other
provinces supplied a great stimulus to Roman architecture and engineering.
It was in the use of the arch and the vault, particularly the vault of
concrete, that the Roman architects excelled, and their highest
achievements were great vaulted structures like the Pantheon and the Baths
of Caracalla. The most striking testimony to the grandeur of Rome comes
from the remains of Roman architecture in the provinces--from such imposing
ruins as the Porta Nigra of Treves, the theatre at Orange, the Pont du
Gard near Nimes, the bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara and the
amphitheatres of Nimes in France and El-Djemm in Tunisia. But, like the
literature, the Roman art of the principate in time experienced a loss of
creative power. It reached its height under the Flavians and Trajan and
then a steady deterioration set in.

*Causes of intellectual decline.* The third century A. D. witnessed a
general collapse of ancient civilization, no