[Footnote 390: The mere preaching and miracle-working of the Marabouts among the Berbers set up successively the movements of the Fatimites, the Almoravides, and the Almohades (Lane-Poole, p. 54).] [Footnote 391: Concerning the intolerance of this reaction, see Dozy, iii, 248-54. Cp. iii, 16-21, as to the normal fanaticism of the Moorish populace.] [Footnote 392: See Dozy, iii, 286, as to the general lapse from rationalism to faith.] [Footnote 393: See the whole estimate of Prof. Flint, _History of the Philosophy of History_, 1893, pp. 157-71.] [Footnote 394: Cp. Dugat, _Histoire des philosophes et des théologiens mussulmans_, 1878, pp. 337-48; Freeman, _History and Conquests of the Saracens_, p. 124; and the author's _Short History of Freethought_, 2nd. ed. i, 267-68, 277-79.] [Footnote 395: See it discussed in _A Short History of Freethought_, 2nd. ed. i, ch. x, § 3; ii, 56 _sq._ And see below, pt. v, ch. iv. § 2.] [Footnote 396: This was written before 1900.] [Footnote 397: Deutsch, however (_Literary Remains_, p. 172), predicted it with confidence.] CHAPTER III ROME The culture conditions of Rome seem to cause no perplexity even to those who find Greek civilisation a mystery. They are certainly obvious enough. By reason of the primary natural direction of Roman life to plunder and conquest, with a minimum of commerce and peaceful contacts, Roman culture was as backward as that of Greece was forward. The early Etruscan culture having been relegated to the status of archæology, however respectfully treated,[398] and the popular language having become that of all classes, the republican period had to begin again at the beginning. Latin literature practically commenced in the third century B.C., when that of Greece was past its meridian; and the fact that Lucius Andronicus and Nævius, the early playwrights, were men of Greek culture, and that Ennius translated the Greek rationalist Evêmeros (Euhêmeros), point to the Hellenic origins of Rome's intellectual life. Her first art, on the other hand, was substantially derived from the Etruscans, who also laid the simple beginnings of the Roman drama, later built upon under Greek influence. But even with the Etruscan stimulus--itself a case of arrested development--the art went no great way before the conquest of Greece; and even under Greek stimulus the literature was progressive for only two centuries, beginning to decline as soon as the Empire was firmly established.