As time went on these fetters became more and more galling. Just as the Athenians ceased to produce genuine history when their day of national greatness passed with the failing Empire and the inefficient democracy, leaving their learning and their civilization to be overgrown by the weeds of rhetoric and sophistic, so now the Gauls of the transition choked whatever history there was with an abundant growth of words. When the panegyric becomes fashionable in Gaul, we see how history develops into an instrument of imperial policy. Not merely beauty of form and the following of traditional rules, but the narrower purpose of praising the emperor becomes the goal. The facts of history are loosely and wildly used.[1212] Alexander the Great (with the old argument that he conquered merely ‘imbelles Asiaticos’), Hannibal, Augustus, are great names for these Epigoni to juggle with and to mingle promiscuously with the incense of adulation. Of Caesar it is said: ‘ille Graeculos homines adortus est, tu (Constantine) Subalpinos’.[1213] So far did the travesty of history go. ‘There’, said Eumenius of the Maeniana, ‘let the flower of our youth learn ... to praise the deeds of the mighty emperors—_quis enim melior usus eloquentiae?_’[1214] The school must teach them the proofs, varying with the different places, that establish the exploits of the prince; and as the news of victory comes hotly in from time to time, the teacher must point out the land concerned on the map—the double river of Persia, the parching fields of Libya, the curving ‘horns’ of the Rhine, the many-flowing mouths of the Nile. All these several exploits must mould the mind of youth to a sense of imperial greatness, while he envisages the Pax Romana throughout the erstwhile troubled world, ‘for now, now at length we may look at the map of the world with joy, seeing in it naught that is foreign’.[1215] This imperialistic use of history made men afraid to tamper with it, lest indiscretion should mar their fortunes. In the fifth century there was no longer a Domitian to put historians to death, but there was a tradition to bind and intimidate. When Leo, the minister of Euric, advised Sidonius to occupy himself with history during his banishment, the reply was: ‘turpiter falsa, periculose vera dicuntur’.[1216] In this sort of work, says Sidonius, the mention of the good wins scant credit, the mention of the great, unbounded enmity. ‘The writing of history’, he maintains, ‘seems to be the last thing a man of my class ought to undertake, for to begin it means envy, to continue it, trouble, and the end of it is hatred.’ The attitude of mind which made men write to order was spreading: Ausonius is an outstanding example. At the same time the rhetorical tradition in history was persisting. Sidonius wants Leo to undertake a history and the argument for his fitness refers merely to style: ‘nemo te celsius scripserit’.[1217]