others; pass over them in silence, if by speech no end can be served. Thrasea, one of the mildest and so one of the greatest of men, used to say: He who hates vices hates mankind.' There is no more prominent trait in Pliny than his desire for the good opinion of others; and he moved in a circle of men like himself, amiable, vain, given to writing and reciting speeches and verses, a circle where friendship might be vouched by patiently listening to a friend recite.' Pliny has no sense of the humor of it, no sense of absurdity, when he speaks of a young Piso emulating the virtues of his ancestors by reciting smooth elegiacs on the "legends of the stars."'' He was a man of different temper from Juvenal, who wished the plague might take all scribblers, and who thought Orestes a milder wretch than Nero because he had not written a poem on Troy. Pliny was an advocate, and also, in the course of office, had performed the functions of a judge. His kindliness and patience showed in both capacities; when pleading important cases he was pleased to have talented young men associated with him, to bring them into notice; as judge, he allowed pleaders unlimited time, lest something bearing on the issue be excluded."

Roman Law

and Greek

And nowhere was the humane spirit of the times showing itself more clearly than in the law, which was now attaining its greatness. The world has seen no greater jurists than those who developed this most original and splendid product of the Thought. Roman mind,-Julianus, Pomponius, Gaius, Papinianus, Paulus, Ulpianus. The first of these lived in the time of Hadrian; the greatest of them all, Papinianus, in the time of Septimius Severus. Yet the humaner spirit of the Roman law had its far source in 1 Pliny, Epist., viii, 22.

Greek philosophy.' By the time of the Antonines the law could no longer treat slaves simply as chattels; he who killed his own slave without cause was liable to the same punishment as he who killed another's.' Afterwards the reason for such a rule was recognized in the principle of public interest, which demands that no one shall misuse his own property.' The influence of Christianity had to be felt before slavery was declared contrary to the law of nature, since originally all men were born free.'

The Roman law took its general principles and definitions from Greek philosophy; its greatness lay in the practical logic with which these principles were applied and made to solve by certain rule the manifold questions that might arise before the prætor. "Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuens." This definition of justice, with which Justinian's Institutes open, is taken from Ulpianus. But, in its farther source, it is the Platonic justice, viewed, as the Stoics came to view it, not from the point of view of the perfecting of the just individual, but from the point of view of his duty towards others. Although many fundamental thoughts were thus borrowed from the Greeks, the practical sense of the Roman law was its own, and the logic which it applied in actual controversies. Its final excellence was its cosmopolitan spirit. The minds of the Roman jurists were practical, logical, constructive, and large enough to develop a system neither peculiarly Roman nor Greek,

1 "The alleviations of slavery by the imperial law are essentially traceable to the influence of Greek views, e. g., with the Emperor Marcus, who looked up to the Nicopolitan slave (Epictetus) as his master and model."-Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, i, 296.

2 Gaius, i, 53.

3

3 Justinian's Ins., i, 8.

▲ Ib., i, 2. But it was still admitted that "Servitus est constitutio juris gentium."-Ib., i, 3.

5 Greek philosophy is the source of such definitions as these: Jus est ars boni et æqui.—Dig., i, i, 1 : Juris præcepta sunt hæc honeste vivere, alterum non lædere: suum cuique tribuere.-Jus., i, 1.

but suited to the exigencies of the legal relations which they were forced to analyze and adjudicate in the capital of a world-empire. Through its logical development in accord with such manifold exigencies, the Roman law became adapted to the needs of mankind and the principal source of modern jurisprudence.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE EMPIRE: PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIOUS REVIVAL.

THE

and its

Philoso

phers.

HE poets of the Empire naturally express more of the sentiments and emotions of the age than its philosophers. And it was a time when men were advancing through growth of feeling and through the recognition of its ethical worth, and not through the development of reason. Hence the poets The Age represent most fully the spiritual progress of the time. The great philosophers of Greece left little unattained in qualities of mind. In knowledge the world has passed beyond them; it has seen no men more intellectual. But they left much unattained in the development of the human heart; and this development went on throughout the entire period from Aristotle to Marcus Aurelius. Such progress as is shown by the philosophers of the Empire lies in the growth of feeling, and in the thoughts to which that growth gave rise. These men represent no philosophical advance, while, even in their disavowals, they show the human heart pressing to recognition. Share in this spirit-growth drives Seneca to rhetorical exaggeration in his denial of the claims of emotion,' strengthens the love of God and man in Epictetus and Marcus, and saddens the Stoic emperor with longings unjustified in his philosophy.

There is another aspect of the change between the earlier and the later philosophers. Greek philosophy,

1 See e.g., Ad Marciam de Consolatione, vii, for Seneca's deprecation of grief, yet recognition of it.

until the death of Aristotle, loved knowledge for its own sake, and deemed a search for it to be a crowning part of life. The Stoical as well as the Epicurean philosophy was rather a guide of life, a means of bringing peace to men. Among the Romans these systems became almost exclusively ethical, that is, practical. By the time of Epictetus and Marcus, the helplessness of man without philosophy was felt, and philosophy became more and more what the weaker age was needing, a refuge and a consolation. Yet another stage, and philosophy in NeoPlatonism, satiated with reason or distrusting it, seeks to reach beyond, and turns to revelation and religion.

Stoical Aphorism

and Benevolence; Seneca.

The "summum bonum," says Seneca, "est animus fortuita despiciens, virtute lætus," ' an ordinary and fundamental Stoical thought, which Seneca proceeds to expand rhetorically, laying stress-it is Seneca's style to lay stress-on freeing oneself from the servitude of pleasures and griefs, whereupon shall arise that inestimable good, peace of mind. Seneca has much Stoical aphorism: no evil can happen to a good man; the wise man abides himself and transmutes whatever happens into his own tone; adverse things are to be regarded as practice; virtue, unopposed, rusts;' misfortune is virtue's opportunity; not what, but how, you bear is important.' He also drew more tempered thoughts from life: a man should retire much within himself, yet needs company as well as solitude; the mind should not always be kept intense, but given relaxation with mirth; a sage does not love riches, yet prefers them ;' it is preferable to have joys to moderate than griefs to repress; but let us accept whatever comes as if it were the thing prayed for; omnes mihi ex voto dies cedant."

་་

1 De Vita Beata, iv.

2 Cf. De Vita Beata, v, 3; viii, 3.

3 De Prov., ii, 1-4.

▲ Ib., iv, 6.

5 Ib., ii, 4.

• De Tran. An., xvii, 3.

↑ Ib., xxi, 4.

8 lb., xxv, 3.

9 Ib., xxv, 2.