Among the ages which followed the Augustan, that of Constantine merits particular distinction. It is immortalized by the great changes which it ushered into the world. It commenced, it is true, with bringing back barbarism. Not merely were there no Ciceros, Horaces, and Virgils, any longer to be found, but there was not even a Lucan or a Seneca; there was not even a philosophic and accurate historian. Nothing was to be seen but equivocal satires or mere random panegyrics. It was at that time that the Christians began to write history, but they took not Titus Livy, or Thucydides as their models. The followers of the ancient religion wrote with no greater eloquence or truth. The two parties, in a state of mutual exasperation, did not very scrupulously investigate the charges which they heaped upon their adversaries; and hence it arises that the same man is sometimes represented as a god and sometimes as a monster. The decline of everything, in the commonest mechanical arts, as well as in eloquence and virtue, took place after the reign of Marcus Aurelius. He was the last emperor of the sect of stoics, who elevated man above himself by rendering him severe to himself only, and compassionate to others. After the death of this emperor, who was a genuine philosopher, there was nothing but tyranny and confusion. The soldiers frequently disposed of the empire. The senate had fallen into such complete contempt that, in the time of Gallienus, an express law was enacted to prevent senators from engaging in war. Thirty heads of parties were seen, at one time, assuming the title of emperor in thirty provinces of the empire. The barbarians already poured in, on every side, in the middle of the third century, on this rent and lacerated empire. Yet it was held together by the mere military discipline on which it had been founded.