I make a pause in the middle of the third century, to give a general view of some leading points. There is now a circumstance which begins from this time to be strikingly seen. Most of the sepulchral inscriptions which we have, are from the end of the first to the middle of the third century; and of these the great majority are to the memory of freedmen, there being about ten libertini to one ingenuus. The fine marble tombs of the great families were most of them destroyed during the middle ages, and they are now very scarce: the stones were used for building at the time of the restoration of the city. As the names of free men were everywhere getting confused from the beginning of the third century, there is indeed hardly a tomb, after the first half of the third century, in which libertini are to be met with. The importation of slaves must have stopped, and therefore the custom of having households of them must have immensely fallen off: the development of the system of colonies must have absorbed the greater part of them.

Moreover, at this time, the difference between imperial and senatorial provinces is done away with. Severus is said to have taken the provinces from the senate, thereby paving the way for the arrangements made by Diocletian and Constantine.

In former days, before I had mooted the subject, the Roman literature of the first half of the third century was thought to have been already quite barbarous, which was indeed the case with the fine arts. Historical plastic art, of which we have specimens in the bas reliefs on the spiral columns, is at its height under Trajan, and still keeps up even as late as the Antonines. Of Antoninus Pius, I know but one historical bas relief, which, however, is wretched: under M. Antoninus, this art had risen again. Architecture was already in its decline under Hadrian, as this emperor had a corrupt taste, being fond of mannerism and an artificial style. The statue of M. Antoninus on horseback is a noble work: if the horse is less to our liking, this is perhaps because the race itself to which it belongs does not seem to us at all beautiful; for indeed the whole is full of spirit and life. But this is also the last masterpiece: even as early as Trajan, art is merely historical, nor is there any monument left in which the ideal of a grand and creative style is to be seen. As for painting, it was now indeed quite gone, as Petronius expressly remarks; some works of this class, which are still to be found, are detestably bad: its decline became complete owing to the rise of mosaic, which now began to be employed. Of the age of Severus and Caracalla, there are still very fine busts; of Severus also, there are still very fine statues; but the bas reliefs on the triumphal arch of this emperor are already thoroughly bad: those on the small arch which was erected by the argentarii, are quite barbarously misdrawn, scientific skill and the eye for proportion are lost. After the time of Caracalla, we have not one good bust: they are all misshapen, though some of them may indeed be likenesses. The coins also become more and more barbarous.

The literature of the great jurists has reached its height, and at the same time its end, in Papinian and Ulpian, both of whom, diversis virtutibus, are of transcendent greatness: Paullus ought never to be spoken of in the same breath with them. They are both of them excellent likewise with regard to language; for although some small mistakes may be found in it here and there, it is truly Roman. It is remarkable that they had no successors; just as with Demosthenes oratory is at its height, and then dies away; just as after Thucydides, no historian of the same spirit rose up again. A long while afterwards, there followed Hermogenianus and others, who were mere compilers. The scientific arrangement of the law gave rise to the legislation of the imperial secretaries, whose statutes, however, are most detestably drawn up: we may indeed thank our stars, that their verbosity is curtailed in the code.—With regard to the belles lettres, I have shown, and I look upon it as an established fact, that Curtius belongs to the time of Severus and Caracalla: he is an author who already writes quite an artificial style, an imitation of Livy. Still later, in the reign of Alexander Severus, perhaps even in that of Gordian, lived the most witty, but most profligate, Petronius Arbiter, in whom Mamæa is distinctly alluded to. The excellent Hadrian Valesius was the first who drew attention to this: the prelate Monsignor Stefano Gradi violently opposed him at first; but he afterwards set an honourable example by giving up his own opinion, and making the proof complete. I have added some further arguments, which both of them had overlooked, such as the passage concerning Mamæa, and likewise an epitaph which is evidently of the time of Severus. Petronius’ language—leaving aside those passages in which he makes people talk, as they really then spoke, in the lingua rustica—bears the marks of the age of which it is the true living expression. He is the greatest poetical genius of Rome since the days of Augustus; but one sees how his talent was quite confined to the romance and the poetry of every-day life.

In the middle of the third century, Rome was in everything already sinking into a state of barbarism: even the characters on the inscriptions are of a barbarous shape, and the lines are crooked and slanting.