Epicureanism in its moral code was at one with the common Greek consciousness in making moderation or prudence a cardinal virtue;[513] but it differed radically from the ordinary Greek mode of thought in its depreciation and neglect of the civic virtues. Hence the system was at once a symptom and a cause of the decay of the Greek city state and of the old moral ideal which was based so largely upon it. The philosophy of Epicurus, as we have already said, is the natural product of an age of transition and social dislocation. It offers an ideal of life which is eagerly adopted by those unable to combat trouble, by those to whom duty does not appeal as something dignified and majestic. Hence in the decadent and unsettled age of the Roman Empire it became the rule of life of large numbers of the cultured classes of society, and must be regarded as one of the disintegrating agencies of Greco-Roman civilization. [Sidenote: Advance in humanitarian feelings and growth in ethical cosmopolitanism] A general view of the society of the Hellenistic world toward the opening of the Christian era discloses the fact that the moral evolution so long in progress has effected such changes in the Greek moral consciousness as to render this ethical movement an important preparation for the incoming of the moral ideal of Christianity. These changes are especially to be observed in the growth of humanitarian sentiment and in a broadening of the moral sympathies. The Greeks, compared with the Romans, were naturally a humane folk. When it was proposed to introduce at Athens the gladiatorial games, the orator Demonax told the people that they should first tear down the ancestral altar to Pity, a shrine which, in the words of Lecky, “was venerated throughout the ancient world as the first great assertion among mankind of the supreme sanctity of mercy.”[514] One of the motives of Pythagoras in forbidding the use of meat as food was, seemingly, to inspire a horror of shedding blood, even that of an animal. The laws of Athens permitted no punishment more severe than a painless death.[515] This natural humaneness of the Greek spirit deepened as the centuries passed. Contrasted with the Periclean Age the Platonic Age shows, Professor Mahaffy affirms, “a greater gentleness and softness, ... a nearer approach to the greater humanity of Christian teaching.”[516] We have already noted this movement in the domain of war practices and customs, where it found expression in the amelioration of the gross, archaic barbarities of primitive warfare. In the social sphere the progressive evolution is evidenced by the growing mildness of slavery and the frequency of the manumission of slaves.[517]