at their priests, patronize missionaries, and believe nothing. The
description which Cato gives of the young idlers at Rome reminds us very
much of young Bengal.

When Rome took the torch of knowledge from the dying hands of Greece, that
torch was not burning with its brightest light. Plato and Aristotle had
been succeeded by Chrysippus and Carneades; Euripides and Menander had
taken the place of AEschylus and Sophocles. In becoming the guardian of the
Promethean spark first lighted in Greece, and intended hereafter to
illuminate not only Italy, but every country of Europe, Rome lost much of
that native virtue to which she owed her greatness. Roman frugality and
gravity, Roman citizenship and patriotism, Roman purity and piety, were
driven away by Greek luxury and levity, Greek intriguing and self-seeking,
Greek vice and infidelity. Restrictions and anathemas were of no avail;
and Greek ideas were never so attractive as when they had been reprobated
by Cato and his friends. Every new generation became more and more
impregnated with Greek. In 131(85) we hear of a consul (Publius Crassus)
who, like another Mezzofanti, was able to converse in the various dialects
of Greek. Sulla allowed foreign ambassadors to speak Greek before the
Roman senate.(86) The Stoic philosopher Panaetius(87) lived in the house of
the Scipios, which was for a long time the rendezvous of all the literary
celebrities at Rome. Here the Greek historian Polybius, and the
philosopher Cleitomachus, Lucilius the satirist, Terence the African poet
(196-159), and the improvisatore Archias (102 B. C.), were welcome
guests.(88) In this select circle the master-works of Greek literature
were read and criticised; the problems of Greek philosophy were discussed;
and the highest interests of human life became the subject of thoughtful
conversation. Though no poet of original genius arose from this society,
it exercised a most powerful influence on the progress of Roman
literature. It formed a tribunal of good taste; and much of the
correctness, simplicity, and manliness of the classical Latin is due to
that "Cosmopolitan Club," which met under the hospitable roof of the
Scipios.

The religious life of Roman society at the close of the Punic wars was
more Greek than Roman. All who had learnt to think seriously on religious
questions were either Stoics or followers of Epicurus; or they embraced
the doctrines of the New Academy, denying the possibility of any knowl