[540] “The unusual enthusiasm for the shows is expressed in many a rude sketch which has been traced by boyish hands upon the walls.”--DILL, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 238. [541] In an eloquent passage Lecky thus sums up the demoralizing effects of the spectacles: “Those hateful games, which made the spectacle of human suffering and death the delight of all classes, had spread their brutalising influence wherever the Roman name was known, had rendered millions absolutely indifferent to the sight of human suffering, had produced in many, in the very centre of an advanced civilization, a relish and a passion for torture, a rapture and an exultation in watching the spasms of extreme agony, such as an African or an American savage alone can equal”. (_History of European Morals_, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 467). [542] The period which witnessed the greatest inequality of fortunes was the last century of the Republic and the first of the Empire. [543] It should be borne in mind that the clients of this period were wholly different from the clients of the earlier times. The relations of the early clients to their patrons were those of clansmen to their chief; the relations of these later clients to their patrons were the degrading relations of idle, needy dependents to newly rich men without family traditions and socially and morally wholly unfit for their elevation. [544] _The History of Rome_ (1888), vol. ii, p. 524. [545] “The deepest feeling of Tacitus about the early Empire seems to have been that it was fatal to character both in prince and subject.”--DILL, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 29. [546] _The Moral Ideal_, 3d ed., p. 204. [547] _History of European Morals_, 3d ed., vol. i, pp. 332 ff. [548] _Ibid._ 3d ed., vol. i, p. 227. [549] “Men ceased to be adventurous, patriotic, just, magnanimous; but in exchange they became chaste, tender-hearted, loyal, religious, and capable of infinite endurance in a good cause.”--SEELEY, _Roman Imperialism_ (1889), p. 33. [550] _The Moral Ideal_, 3d ed., p. 187. [551] About 40–120 A.D. [552] Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 64. [553] Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, pp. 231 f. [554] Cf. _Ibid._ p. 232. [555] Stoicism is second only to Christianity as a moral force in European civilization. “One of the most important expressions of the moral sense for all time,” affirms Professor Clifford, “is that of the Stoic philosophy, especially after its reception among the Romans” (_Lectures and Essays_ (1901), vol. ii, p. 108). Mahaffy declares that the Stoic philosophy, “above all the human influences we know, purified and ennobled the world” (_The Silver Age_ (1906), p. 103). Denis thinks that it was through Stoicism that Rome did most for civilization (_Histoire des théories et des idées morales dans l’antiquité_ (1879), t. ii, p. 5). [556] Taken from Menander.