LITERATURE.--If the sanguinary fights in the arena excited little or no condemnation, the prevalence of various other sorts of immorality, at variance with the practice of better days, could not fail to call out different forms of censure. One of these forms of protest was through the _satirical poets_. Of these caustic writers, _Persius_ (34-62) is obscure and of a moderate degree of merit. _Juvenal_ (about 55-135), on the contrary, is spirited and full of force. _Martial_ (43-101), a Spaniard by birth, was the author of numerous short poems of a pithy and pointed character, called _epigrammata_. All these poets, if we make proper discount for the exaggeration of satire, are very instructive as to the manners and morals of their time. _Lucian_ (120-200), who wrote in Greek, the best known of whose works are his "Dialogues," touched with his broad humor a great many of the superstitions and follies of the day. The popular teachers in the imperial time were the _rhetoricians_, analogous to the Greek _Sophists_,--teachers of rhetoric and eloquence,--one of whom, _Quintilian_ (who was born about 40, and died about 118), was the first to receive from the public treasury a regular salary, and had among his pupils the younger _Pliny_ and the two grand-nephews of _Domitian_. The influence of the mania for rhetoric was more and more to impart an artificial character to literature and art. The epic poems of such writers as _Lucan_ and _Statitis_ are to a large extent imitations; although Lucan's principal poem, "Pharsalia," gives evidence of poetic talent. Where there was so little productive genius, it was natural that grammarians and commentators should abound. There was one great writer, the historian _Tacitus_ (about 54-117), who towers above his contemporaries, and in vigor and conciseness has seldom been equaled. The elder _Pliny_ (23-79), whose curiosity to witness the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 cost him his life, was a famous observer and author in natural history. His nephew, the younger _Pliny_, the friend of Trajan, has left to us ten books of "Epistles," which present an agreeable picture of the life and thoughts of a cultivated Roman gentleman. The philosopher _Seneca_, with the exception of _Marcus Aurelius_, the most eminent expositor of the Roman Stoic school, was a voluminous author. No ancient heathen writer has uttered so many thoughts and precepts which bear a resemblance to teachings of the New Testament.