“Even before the time of war and pestilence in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, we mark in the whole of intellectual life not merely a pause but even a backward movement. The only exception is a revival of Greek rhetorical prose, perfect in form but monotonous in substance. Its chief representative is the sophist and rhetorician, Aristides, and his best work is his _Panegyric_ on Rome. The _Dialogues_ of Lucian are witty and interesting; he was a sceptic and a humorist who mocked all ideals both new and old. In the West there are only two names to be quoted, that of the satirist Juvenal, a gloomy and bitter observer of the dark side of human life, and that of Pliny the Younger, a shallow orator and a brilliant representative of the epistolary style. The rest both in Greece and in Italy are writers of handbooks, text-books, and of miscellaneous collections of entertaining stories for the amusement and instruction of the reader.” Rostovtzeff’s omission of all reference to the Greek Romances (even to Lucian’s) and to Apuleius shows how completely they have been disregarded. Yet for a picture of the social life of the second and the third centuries and of the psychology of the men of the time the Greek Romances and Apuleius are a revelation. The Roman empire had checked both political activity and oratory, indeed the orator had been succeeded by the rhetor in Greece and Rome. In the unified Mediterranean world trade had developed greatly and travellers had followed traders from one country to another, among them the lecturing sophists. The new lands visited had their curiosities and splendors so travellers’ tales multiplied with descriptions often worthy of a natural history. Men, diverted from the aims of personal ambition which military conquest or a democratic state had afforded, now sought release and excitement in the personal relations. Women achieved a new freedom and a new importance. The emotional life came to have a new interest and this led to the development of the prose romance.