[578] _De Clem._ i. 18. [579] Tacitus, _Annals_, xiv. 42–45. [580] Manumissions were frequent even in Seneca’s time. Pliny the Elder was a kind master, regarded his slaves as “humble friends,” and manumitted many of them. [581] The client class of the imperial period was made up almost wholly of freedmen. [582] It is surprising that while in the Stoic and other schools there was, during these centuries, great advance in theoretical ethics in various domains, in that of war there was no essential modification of the views and feelings of the teachers and leaders of moral reforms. In the whole range of Roman literature and philosophy there are to be found scarcely any expressions of disapproval of war. The attitude of the Roman moralists in this matter appears to have been altogether like that of the Greek philosophers. The right to wage war for empire and for glory was taught even by Cicero, only such wars, he insisted, should be waged more gently than wars to recover property, to punish insult, or to avenge a wrong (_De Off._ i. 12). [583] For the ethics of Christian persecution, see below, p. 324. [584] See on this subject Fiske, _Excursions of an Evolutionist_ (1883), pp. 238 ff.; Hardy, _Christianity and the Roman Government_ (1894), p. 17; Pollock, _Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics_ (1882), p. 147. [585] Besides this main motive of the persecutions there were these minor ones: (1) The teachings and practices of the new sect offended the prevailing spirit of luxury and sensuality; (2) families were divided; (3) the business of many, as that of the silversmiths of Ephesus, was threatened (Acts xix. 24–41); and (4) fear on the part of the government of the danger from the growth of such a strong semi-secret organization as the Church was becoming within the Empire (Hardy, _Christianity and the Roman Government_ (1894), p. 165). [586] “Upon the approach of Christianity humanity took a consciousness more alert and sensitive, and during the first three centuries of our era all the ideas, all the sentiments which constitute morality developed on parallel lines and with remarkable force in the growing Church and in expiring paganism.”--DENIS, _Histoire des théories et des idées morales dans l’antiquité_ (1879), t. ii, p. 145. [587] _De Off._ i. 25. [588] _Meditations_, xi. 18. [589] _Ibid._ vii. 36. [590] _Ibid._ ix. 9; cf. vi. 47. [591] _Ibid._ vi. 6. [592] _Fragments_, tr. Long, lxviii; cf. lxvii. [593] _Meditations_, iii. 4. [594] _De Prov._ i. 1. [595] _Meditations_, x. 21. [596] _Ibid._ ii. 11. [597] _Ibid._ xii. 5. [598] _Ibid._ ii. 17. [599] Arrian, _Epict._ ii. 14; quoted by Lecky, _History of European Morals_, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 246. [600] _Meditations_, vii. 31. [601] _Ethical Essays_, v, “On those who are punished by the Deity late.” [602] _De Off._ ii. 14. [603] _Ibid._ ii. 5. [604] _Ibid._ i. 7. [605] _Ibid._ iii. 6.