THE VICES AND VIRTUES OP ROME 95 



clock of social evolution was stopped when they fell, 

 only to start again at the end of the eighteenth 

 century. 



Of the religious and moral evolution I have written 

 much in other books, and little can be said here. 

 By the first century b.c. educated Romans generally 

 ceased to be polytheists and merely paid external 

 conformity to the old religion. Philosophers carefully 

 note that the Romans invented no new system of 

 thought. They were practical men. Possibly most 

 of us do not regret that they found no time for 

 metaphysics. Those of them who were inclined to 

 speculative thought — and there was always a good 

 market for Greek philosophers at Rome — were either 

 Stoics or Epicureans ; or it would be nearer to the 

 truth to say that most of the educated Romans more 

 or less blended the two. Nominally Stoicism was the 

 favourite philosophy, and in the first and second 

 centuries of the Christian Era this ethic — it was 

 never a religion — led to an outburst of philanthropy 

 such as the world was not to witness again until the 

 nineteenth century. It was essentially a doctrine of 

 human brotherhood. Its orators, friends of the 

 Emperor, publicly denounced slavery in the Forum 

 as contrary to natural law. 



On the ethical side Rome has, like all the old 

 civilizations, been grossly misunderstood by later 

 ages, but I must refer to my larger works (especially 

 The Empresses of Rome) for details. It was only 

 during a few short periods, under insane or half- 

 insane Emperors like Caligula and Nero, that there 

 was any blatant exhibition of what some writers 

 represent as habitual. It is enough to say that 

 the Roman law, like the Babylonian, sentenced 



