which the light of Thesophy might
have more leave to shine. The certainty is that the last third
of the first century wrought an enormous change: the period that
preceded it was one of the worst, and the age that followed it,
that of the Five Good Emperors, was the best, in known European
history.--Under the Flavians, from 69 to 96,--or roughly, during
the last quarter,--came the Silver Age, the second and last great
day of Latin literature: with several Spanish and some Italian
names,--foam of the Crest-Wave, these latter, as it passed over
from Spain to the East. It will, by the way, help us to a
conception of the magnitude of the written material at the
disposal of the Roman world, to remember that Pliny the Elder, in
preparing his great work on Natural History, consulted six
thousand published authorities. That was in the reign of Nero;
it makes one feel that those particular ancients had not so much
less reading matter at their command than we have today.

Of the great Flavian names in literature, we have Tacitus;
Pliny the Younger, with his bright calm pictures of life;
Juvenal, with his very dark ones: these were Italians. Juvenal
was a satirist with a moral purpose; the Spaniard Martial,
contemporary, was a satirist without one. Martial drew from
life, and therefore his works, though coarse, are still interesting.
We learn from him what enormous activity in letters was to be
found in those days in his native Spain; where every town
had its center of learning and apostles and active propaganda
of culture. Such things denote an ancient cultural habit,
lapsed for a time, and then revived.

Another great Spainiard, and the best man in literature of the
age, was Quintilian: gracious, wise, and of high Theosophic
ideals, especially in education. He was born in A.D. 35; and
was probably the greatest literary critic of classical antiquity.
For twenty years, from 72 until his death, he was at the head of
the teaching profession in Rome. The "teaching" was, of course,
in rhetoric. Rome resounded with speech-makings; and Gaul,
Spain, and Africa were probably louder with it than Rome. Though
the end of education then was to turn out speech-makers,--as it
is now to turn out money-makers,--I do not see but that the
Romans had the best of it,--Quintilian saw through all to
fundamental truths; he taught that your true speech-maker must
be first a true man. He went thoroughly into the training of the
orator,-