edge
of the Infinite, and putting opinion in the place of truth.(89) Though the
doctrines of Epicurus and the New Academy were always considered dangerous
and heretical, the philosophy of the Stoics was tolerated, and a kind of
compromise effected between philosophy and religion. There was a
state-philosophy as well as a state-religion. The Roman priesthood, though
they had succeeded, in 161, in getting all Greek rhetors and philosophers
expelled from Rome, perceived that a compromise was necessary. It was
openly avowed that in the enlightened classes(90) philosophy must take the
place of religion, but that a belief in miracles and oracles was necessary
for keeping the large masses in order. Even Cato,(91) the leader of the
orthodox, national, and conservative party, expressed his surprise that a
haruspex, when meeting a colleague, did not burst out laughing. Men like
Scipio AEmilianus and Laelius professed to believe in the popular gods; but
with them Jupiter was the soul of the universe, the statues of the gods
mere works of art.(92) Their gods, as the people complained, had neither
body, parts, nor passions. Peace, however, was preserved between the Stoic
philosopher and the orthodox priest. Both parties professed to believe in
the same gods, but they claimed the liberty to believe in them in their
own way.

I have dwelt at some length on the changes in the intellectual atmosphere
of Rome at the end of the Punic wars, and I have endeavored to show how
completely it was impregnated with Greek ideas in order to explain, what
otherwise would seem almost inexplicable, the zeal and earnestness with
which the study of Greek grammar was taken up at Rome, not only by a few
scholars and philosophers, but by the leading statesmen of the time. To
our minds, discussions on nouns and verbs, on cases and gender, on regular
and irregular conjugation, retain always something of the tedious
character which these subjects had at school, and we can hardly understand
how at Rome, grammar--pure and simple grammar--should have formed a subject
of general interest, and a topic of fashionable conversation. When one of
the first grammarians of the day, Crates of Pergamus, was sent to Rome as
ambassador of King Attalus, he was received with the greatest distinction
by all the literary statesmen of the capital. It so happened that when
walking one day on the Palatian hill, Crates caught his foot in the
grating of a sewer, fell and broke his leg