Lucretius (95-52 B. C.), the exponent of the Epicurean doctrines, regarded the gods as the creations of human fear. Ennius (239-169 B. C.) translated and expounded the writings of Euhemerus (316 B. C.), wherein it was claimed that all the ancient myths were historical events, that the gods were originally kings who were accorded post mortem worship by their grateful subjects. The Stoics regarded the gods as personifications of the different attributes of nature. Cicero adopted the Platonic conception of the deity as mind freed from all taint of matter, while Ovid made the gods ridiculous in his mocking "Metamorphoses," and, in his lascivious descriptions of their amours, degraded them forever as ethical models. Horace likewise mocked them. The glorious military conquests of the Roman arms in Asia and Africa brought the soldiers into contact with alien religions, and the germs instilled in the minds of the armies spread among all the peoples of Rome's domains, upon their return. Likewise the ever-increasing influx of foreigners, bringing with them their native gods and theological systems, had more or less influence, while the apotheoses of the emperors gave a powerful impetus to the degradation of the ancient faith. The vulgar clung to their ancient shrines and the cultured sneered at them for so doing. They bent the knee in public and they laughed mockingly in private. In such a state was the religion of Rome when the first Christians began to proselyte; and on such fertile ground, amid the ruins of an ancient faith, the seed readily took root and rapidly spread out. Any other faith, supported by sturdy, conscientious and indomitable missionaries, would have done the same. The old faith was dead and the time was ripe for something new and vigorous.