6. HISTORY.--For the reasons already stated, Rome for a long period could boast of no historian; the perilous nature of the times, and the personal obligations under which learned men frequently were to the emperors, rendered contemporary history a means of adulation and servility. To this class of historians belongs Paterculus (fl. 30 A.D.), who wrote a history of Rome which is partial, prejudiced, and adulatory. He was a man of lively talents, and his taste was formed after the model of Sallust, of whom he was an imitator. His style is often overstrained and unnatural. Under the genial and fostering influence of the Emperor Trajan, the fine arts, especially architecture, flourished, and literature revived. The same taste and execution which are visible in the bas-reliefs on the column of Trajan adorn the literature of his age as illustrated by its two great lights, Tacitus and the younger Pliny. There is not the rich, graceful manner which invests with such a charm the writers of the Golden Age, but the absence of these qualities is amply compensated by dignity, gravity, and honesty. Truthfulness beams throughout the writings of these two great contemporaries, and incorruptible virtue is as visible in the pages of Tacitus as benevolence and tenderness are in the letters of Pliny. They mutually influenced each other's characters and principles; their tastes and pursuits were similar; they loved each other dearly, corresponded regularly, corrected each other's works, and accepted patiently and gratefully each other's criticism.