Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/411

Rh government not very different from the doctrines of Socrates. Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23–79) is almost the only Roman who won renown as a naturalist. The only work of his that has been spared to us is his Natural History, a sort of "Roman Encyclopædia," embracing thirty-seven books.

Marcus Aurelius the emperor and Epictetus the slave hold prominent places among the ethical teachers of Rome. Of the emperor as a philosopher we have already spoken (see p. 321).

Epictetus (b. about 60 A.D.) was for many years a slave at the capital; but, securing in some way his freedom, he became a teacher of philosophy. Epictetus and Aurelius were the last eminent representatives and expositors of the philosophy of Zeno. Christianity, giving a larger place to the affections than did Stoicism, was already fast winning the hearts of men.

Writers of the Early Latin Church.—The Christian authors of the first three centuries, like the writers of the New Testament, employed the Greek, that being the language of learning and culture. As the Latin tongue, however, came into more general use throughout the extended provinces of the Roman empire, the Christian authors naturally began to use the same in the