A brief renaissance, however, succeeded; so that the imperial fiend Nero was able to number among his victims an epic poet, Lucan, and a philosopher and dramatist of no common stamp, Seneca. Under the Cæsars, genius was hopelessly fettered; a chance word might condemn its author to the headsman; the poet, the historian, the orator, must needs suppress his sentiments or forfeit his self-respect by flattering the reigning despot. A brighter day dawned with the mild rule of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines (96-180 A.D.). During this golden age of the Roman empire, poetry for a time recovered its vitality, and through the stinging satires of Juvenal denounced the abuses that had prevailed in the days of Nero and Domitian; while in the histories of Tacitus, prose indignantly broke its enforced silence, and held up to public detestation the despots of the past. But this revival was short-lived. Latin literature rapidly degenerated, for Latin genius was no more. In the later centuries of the empire, science and jurisprudence alone flourished on the soil where poetry had now ceased to bloom. (_Refer to Nisard’s “Études sur les Poètes Latins de la Décadence”_) ERA OF THE CÆSARS (14-96 A.D.). In the reign of Tiberius, we meet with the names of Velleius Paterculus, the court historian, Celsus, and Phædrus. =Velleius Paterculus= is memorable for his epitome of Roman history, a work in other respects meritorious, but marred by its author’s servile praise of Tiberius. Yet we must remember that Velleius was not permitted to see the worst phase of this emperor’s tyranny. When the treachery of the prime minister Seja’nus was exposed, the historian, though not implicated with him, was one of the first to be put to death. He was thus prevented from witnessing the murders of hundreds of other innocent persons—atrocities that might have altered his estimate of his ungrateful master. =Valerius Maximus=, his contemporary and fellow-flatterer, prepared a cyclopædia of anecdotes gleaned from the history of Rome and foreign countries, entitled “Remarkable Deeds and Sayings.” It was designed for the use of persons who had not the time or inclination to make original investigations, and, though written in an artificial style, contains much that is interesting. =Celsus= was the author of a scientific encyclopædia, whose twenty books were devoted to farming, medicine, rhetoric, jurisprudence, and military tactics. The eight books on medicine still survive, constituting the great Roman authority on that subject. Before his day the art of medicine and surgery had been almost entirely confined to Greek physicians; but Celsus dignified it as a calling worthy of Romans, not only practising with success among his countrymen, but committing to writing the results of his experience. He was the first ancient author who recommended the tying of blood-vessels for the purpose of checking hemorrhage.