Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/88

 there is a growing sense that neither may impure words be indulged in, even by those whose lives are pure. Even so far as the composition of light verse was concerned, a new sensitiveness was making itself evident. Catullus had said in the old days that a chaste and pious man might legitimately write verses of a licentious character, and the catchword had been repeated by all the society poets down to Martial. But, even when addressing Domitian, Martial, who asserts that his life is pure, begs the Emperor to regard his lightest epigrams with the toleration due to the licence of a court jester. Pliny, the excellent and respectable Pliny, could not read his naughty hendecasyllables "merely to a few friends in my private chamber" without subjecting his compositions to serious criticisms in the homes of these friends, criticisms which he strives to meet by a long display of great names who have sinned in the same direction; but beneath this display his uneasiness peeps forth at every word.

The moral reformation officially inaugurated by Augustus appears, in the light of these indications, as corresponding to an increased tendency to virtue