On the whole, the middle of the first century was one of the worst epochs of ancient history. Grecian and Roman society had declined from its former condition, and was far behind the ages which were to follow. The greatness of the crisis revealed a strange and secret process going on. Life seemed to have lost its motives; suicide became common.[17.93] Never had an age presented so dire a struggle between good and evil. The powers of evil were a terrible despotism which delivered the world to the hands of monsters and madmen, corruption of morals arising from the importation of Oriental vices, and the want of a pure religion and decent public instruction. The powers of good were on the one side, philosophy fighting with bared breast against tyranny, defying the monsters of oppression, and three or four times proscribed in half a century (under Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian);[17.94] on the other side, the struggles of popular virtue, the legitimate longings for a better religion, the tendency towards confraternities and monotheistic creeds, and the recognition of the lower classes which occurred chiefly under cover of Judaism and Christianity. These two great protests were far from being accordant. The philosophic party and the Christian party were not acquainted with each other, and had so little perception of their common interest that when the philosophers came into power by the accession of Nerva, they were far from being favorable to Christianity. In truth, the aim of the Christians was much more radical. The Stoics, when they became masters of the empire, reformed it, and presided over a hundred of the happiest years in the history of man. The Christians, when they became masters of the empire, ended by destroying it. The heroism of the latter ought not to make us unmindful of that of the former. Christianity was always unjust towards pagan virtues, and made it her business to decry the very men who had fought against the same common enemy. There was as much grandeur in the struggle of philosophy in the first century as in that of Christianity; but how unequal has been the recompense. The martyr who overturned idols with his foot lives in pious legend. Why are not the statues of Annæus Cornutus, who declared in presence of Nero that the emperor's writings would never be worth those of Chrysippus[17.95]--of Helvidius Priscus, who told Vespasian to his face, "It is thine to murder--it is mine to die!"--[17.96] of Demetrius the Cynic, who answered an enraged Nero, "You may menace me with death; but nature threatens you"[17.97]--placed amongst those of the world's heroes whom all love and to whom every one pays homage? Is humanity so strong in her battle with vice and depravity, that any school of virtue can repel the aid of others, and maintain that itself alone has the right to be brave, lofty, and resigned? CHAPTER XVIII. RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION OF THE PERIOD.