agrees with most eighteenth-century writers in regarding the period of the Antonines as a
golden age. "If a man were called upon," he says, "to fix the period in the history of the world,
during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would,
without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of
Commodus." It is impossible to agree altogether with this judgement. The evil of slavery
involved immense suffering, and was sapping the vigour of the ancient world. There were
gladiatorial shows and fights with wild beasts, which were intolerably cruel and must have
debased the populations that enjoyed the spectacle. Marcus Aurelius, it is true, decreed that
gladiators should fight with blunted swords; but this reform was shortlived, and he did nothing
about fights with wild beasts. The economic system was very bad; Italy was going out of
cultivation, and the population of Rome depended upon the free distribution of grain from the
provinces. All initiative was concentrated in the Emperor and his ministers; throughout the vast
extent of the Empire, no one, except an occasional rebellious general, could do anything but
submit. Men looked to the past for what was best; the future, they felt, would be at best a
weariness, and at worst a horror. When we compare the tone of Marcus Aurelius with that of
Bacon, or Locke, or Condorcet, we see the difference between a tired and a hopeful age. In a
hopeful age, great present evils can be endured, because it is thought that they will pass; but in a
tired age even real goods lose their savour. The Stoic ethic suited the times of Epictetus and
Marcus Aurelius, because its gospel was one of endurance rather than hope.
Undoubtedly the age of the Antonines was much better than any later age until the Renaissance,
from the point of view of the general happiness. But careful study shows that it was not so
prosperous as its architectural remains would lead one to suppose. Graeco-Roman civilization
had made very little impression on the agricultural regions; it was practically limited to the
cities. Even in the cities, there was a proletariat which suffered very great poverty, and there
was a large slave class. Rostovtseff sums up a discussion of social and economic conditions in
the cities as follows: *
* Rostovtseff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, p. 179.