We find imperial interest in education during this period beginning to take a more definite form. Antoninus Pius gives teachers’ salaries and honours,[221] and fixes the number of rhetors in each town. No doubt the influence of M. Cornelius Fronto, the famous tutor of Marcus Aurelius, the model of succeeding generations of orators, told in this direction. In a fragment of this teacher we have a reference which seems to point to schools in the North during the second century. He speaks of Reims (_Durocortorum_) as ‘illae vestrae Athenae’[222], and it would not be surprising if the imperial policy had selected this important frontier town as a centre of Romanization, just as it afterwards patronized Trèves for the same purpose. In the third century a large number of churches sprang up, whose educational value among the people must have been important.[223] Pagan letters, on the other hand, had been showing signs of decline since the end of the second century. Under Caracalla, who in his hatred for literature put to death many men of education,[224] culture sank still lower. It is true that Alexander Severus was a patron of literature[225] and founded schools[226] and fixed salaries, but the general trend of education was one of decline. Barbarian invasions and civil unrest increased this tendency.[227] And so Gaul was disorganized, and amid her disorder education grew feeble. But when in 292 Gaul passed under the government of Constantius Chlorus, interest in culture revived and grew strong. Constantius fixed his abode at Trèves and actively set himself to aid the cause of education. The school of Massilia was declining, but, on the whole, Gallic education grew and gained individuality. Eumenius has told us at length how much the Gallic youth owed to his interest and protection (_incredibilem erga iuventutem Galliarum suarum sollicitudinem atque indulgentiam_), and how thankful he is to the Emperor who transferred him ‘from the secrets of the imperial chambers (he had been Magister Memoriae) to the private shrines of the Muses’.[228]