Greek literature. If we except the brief period of the Augustan age, the Greek literature of the principate stands both in quantity and quality above the Latin. Even Augustus had recognized Greek as the language of government in the eastern half of the empire, and with the gradual abandonment of his policy of preserving the domination of the Italians over the provincials Greeks stood upon the same footing as the Latin speaking provincials in the eyes of the imperial government. In Rome the Greek author received the same recognition as his Roman confrère. Greek historians, geographers, scientists, rhetoricians and philosophers wrote not only for Greeks, but for the educated circles of the whole empire. And it was in Greek [pg 302]that the princeps Marcus Aurelius chose to write his Meditations. Nor should it be forgotten that Greek was the language of the early Christian writers, beginning with the Apostle Paul. By the opening of the third century the champions of the new faith had begun to rank among the leading authors of the day in the East as well as in the West.
Plutarch (c. 50–120 A. D.) and Lucian (c. 125–200 A. D.). The best known names in the Greek literature of the principate are Plutarch and Lucian. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans possess a perpetual freshness and charm. Lucian was essentially a writer of prose satires, a journalist who was “the last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit.” In the realm of science, Ptolemy the astronomer, and Galen the student of medicine, both active in 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 repoussé 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 [pg 303]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 Trèves, the theatre at Orange, the Pont du Gard near Nîmes, the bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara and the amphitheatres of Nîmes 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 less striking in its cultural than in its political and economic aspects. This cultural decline was the result of political causes which had been gradually undermining the foundations of a vigorous intellectual life. The culture of Greece culminated in its scientific achievements of the third century B. C. At that time in comparison with the Greeks the neighboring, peoples were at best semi-barbarians; in the eastern Mediterranean the Greeks were the dominant race, still animated by a strong love of political freedom. But the Roman conquest with its ruthless exploitation of the provinces ruined the Greek world economically and broke the morale of the Greek peoples, forcing them to seek their salvation in fawning servility to Rome. The consequence was that as the Greeks came under the dominion of Rome their creative impulses withered, their intellectual progress ceased and their eyes were turned backward upon their past achievements. And the Italians themselves were on too low an intellectual level to develop a culture of their own. They had not progressed beyond the adoption of certain aspects of Greek culture before the century of civil wars between 133 and 30 B. C. resulted in the establishment of a type of government which gradually crushed out the spirit of initiative in the Latin speaking world. The material prosperity and peace during the first two centuries of the principate made possible the diffusion of a uniform type of culture throughout the empire as a whole, but after the age of Augustus this is characterized both in the East and in the West by its imitation of the past and its lack of creative power. The third century A. D. with its long period of civil war, foreign invasions, and economic chaos, dealt a fatal blow to the material basis of [pg 304]ancient civilization. The collapse of Graeco-Roman culture was rapid and complete, resembling the breakdown of the civilization of the Aegean Bronze age toward the close of the second millennium before the Christian era. Culturally, the fourth century A. D. belongs to the Middle Ages.
III. The Imperial Cult and the Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
The religious transformation of the Roman world. The religious transformation of the Roman world during the principate was fully as important for future ages as its political transformation. This religious development consisted in the diffusion throughout the empire of a group of religions which originated in the countries bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and hence are generally known as Oriental cults. And among these oriental religions are included both Judaism and Christianity.
The state cults. However, the worship of the divinities of Graeco-Roman theology by no means died out during the first three centuries of the Christian era. It continued to flourish in the state cult of Rome, and the municipal cults of the Italian and provincial towns. With the romanization of the semi-barbarous provinces Graeco-Roman deities displaced or assimilated to themselves the gods of the native populations. Druidism, the national religion of Gaul and Britain, was suppressed chiefly because it fostered a spirit of resistance to Roman rule. But the most widespread and vigorous of the state cults was the worship of the princeps.
The imperial cult. We have already discussed the establishment of the imperial cult by Augustus, as a visible expression of the loyalty of the provincials and their acknowledgment of the authority of Rome and the princeps. We have also seen how this cult was perpetuated by the provincial councils organized for that purpose. After the death of Augustus the imperial cult in the provinces gradually came to include the worship of both the ruling Augustus and the Divi, or deceased emperors, who had received deification at the hands of the Senate. This practise was established in all the eastern provinces after the time of Claudius, and in the West under the Flavians. In Rome where the cult of the ruling princeps was not [pg 305]practised, Domitian converted the temple of Augustus into a temple of the Divi or the Caesars.