The invasion of the Roman world by the Oriental mysteries and superstitions in the second century caused the unbelievers to exalt Epicurus yet higher. The satirist Lucian, using almost the same expressions as Lucretius, proclaims the truly sacred and divine character of him who alone knew the good with the true, and who transmitted it to his disciples, to whom he gave moral liberty.[14] Believers everywhere looked upon him as a terrible blasphemer. The prophet Alexander of Abonotichos enjoined all who would obtain divine graces to drive away with stones “atheists, Epicureans and Christians,” and exclude them from his mysteries.[15] He ordered by an oracle that the writings of him whom he called “the blind old man” should be burnt. When mysticism and Platonism triumphed in the Roman world, Epicureanism ceased to exist. It had disappeared in the middle of the fourth century, yet Julian the Apostate thought it advisable to include the writings of Epicurus among the books which were forbidden to the priests of his revived paganism.[16] Thus during several centuries this philosophy had won a multitude of followers. The inscriptions bear eloquent witness to this fact. The most remarkable of them is a long text which was set out on the wall of a portico in the little town of Oenoanda in Lycia. A worthy citizen, Diogenes by name, who seems to have lived under the Antonines, was a convinced partisan of the doctrine of Epicurus; and feeling his end draw near, he wished to engrave an exposition thereof on marble for the present and future edification of his countrymen and of strangers. He does not fail to evince his contempt for death, at which, he says, he has learnt to mock. “I do not let myself be frightened by the Tityi and the Tantali whom some represent in Hades; horror does not seize me when I think of the putrefaction of my body ... when the links which bind our organism are loosened, nothing further touches us.”[17] These are ideas which we find reproduced everywhere, in various forms, for Epicureanism did not only win convinced partisans in the most cultivated circles, but also spread in the lowest strata of the population, as is proved by epitaphs expressing unbelief in an after life. Some do not go beyond a short profession of faith, “We are mortal; we are not immortal.”[18] One maxim is repeated so often that it is sometimes expressed only by initials, “I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care.”[19] So man goes back to nothingness whence he went forth. It has been remarked that this epigraphic formula was engraved especially on the tombs of slaves, who had slight reason for attachment to life. Gladiators also adopted the sentence: these wretched men, who were to prove their indifference to death in the arena, were taught that it marked the destruction of feeling and the term of their suffering.