The Greek conquest of Rome took the form of sending Greek religion and comedy to the Roman plebs; Greek morals, philosophy, and art to the upper classes. These Greek gifts conspired with wealth and empire in that sapping of Roman faith and character which was one part of Hellas’ long revenge upon her conquerors. The conquest reached its climax in Roman philosophy, from the stoic Epicureanism of Lucretius to the epicurean Stoicism of Seneca. In Christian theology Greek metaphysics overcame the gods of Italy. Greek culture triumphed in the rise of Constantinople as first the rival and then the successor of Rome; and when Constantinople fell, Greek literature, philosophy, and art reconquered Italy and Europe in the Renaissance. This is the central stream in the history of European civilization; all other currents are tributaries. “It was no little brook that flowed from Greece into our city,” said Cicero, “but a mighty river of culture and learning.”24 Henceforth the mental, artistic, and religious life of Rome was a part of the Hellenistic world.III
The invading Greeks found a strategic opening in the schools and lecture halls of Rome. A swelling stream of Graeculi—“Greeklings,” as the scornful Romans called them—followed the armies returning from the East. Many of them, as slaves, became tutors in Roman families; some, the grammatici, inaugurated secondary education in Rome by opening schools for instruction in the language and literature of Greece; some, the rhetores, gave private instruction and public lectures on oratory, literary composition, and philosophy. Roman orators—even the mishellenist Cato—began to model their addresses on the speeches of Lysias, Aeschines, and Demosthenes.
Few of these Greek teachers had any religious belief; fewer transmitted any; a small minority of them followed Epicurus and preceded Lucretius in describing religion as the chief evil in human life. The patricians saw where the wind was blowing, and tried to stop it; in 173 the Senate banished two Epicureans, and in 161 it decreed that “no philosophers or rhetors shall be permitted in Rome.” The wind would not stop. In 159 Crates of Mallus, Stoic head of the royal library at Pergamum, came to Rome on an official embassy, broke a leg, stayed on, and, while convalescing, gave lectures on literature and philosophy. In 155 Athens sent as ambassadors to Rome the leaders of its three great philosophical schools: Carneades the Academic or Platonist, Critolaus the Peripatetic or Aristotelian, and Diogenes the Stoic of Seleucia. Their coming was almost as strong a stimulus as Chrysoloras would bring to Italy in 1453. Carneades spoke on eloquence so eloquently that the younger set came daily to hear him.25 He was a complete skeptic, doubted the existence of the gods, and argued that as good reasons could be given for doing injustice as for being just—a belated surrender of Plato to Thrasymachus.26 When old Cato heard of this he moved in the Senate that the ambassadors be sent home. They were. But the new generation had tasted the wine of philosophy; and from this time onward the rich youth of Rome went eagerly to Athens and Rhodes to exchange their oldest faith for the newest doubts.
The very conquerors of Greece were in person the sponsors of Hellenistic culture and philosophy in Rome. Flamininus, who had loved Greek literature before invading Macedon and freeing Greece, was deeply moved by the art and drama he saw in Hellas. We must lay it to the credit side of Rome that some of its generals could understand Polycleitus and Pheidias, Scopas and Praxiteles, even if they carried their appreciation to the point of robbery. Of all the spoils that Aemilius Paulus brought back from his victories over Perseus, he kept for himself only the library of the King, as a heritage for his children. He had his sons instructed in Greek literature and philosophy as well as in the Roman arts of the chase and war; and so far as his public duties permitted he shared in these studies with his children.
Before Paulus died, his youngest son was adopted by his friend, P. Cornelius Scipio, son of Africanus. Following Roman custom, the lad took the name of his adoptive father and added the name of his father’s clan; in this way he became the P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus whom we shall hereafter mean by Scipio. He was a handsome and healthy youth, simple in habits and moderate in speech, affectionate and generous, so honest that at his death, after having all the plunder of Carthage pass through his hands, he left only thirty-three pounds of silver and two of gold—though he had lived like a scholar rather than as a man of means. In his youth he met the Greek exile Polybius, who earned his gratitude and lifelong friendship by giving him good advice and good books. The boy won his spurs by fighting under his father at Pydna; in Spain he accepted the challenge of the enemy to single combat, and won.27
In private life he gathered about him a group of distinguished Romans interested in Greek thought. Chief among them was Gaius Laelius, a man of kindly wisdom and steadfast friendship, just in judgment and blameless in life, and second only to Aemilianus in eloquence of speech and purity of style. Cicero, across a century, fell in love with Laelius, named after him his essay on friendship, and wished he might have lived not in his own turbulent epoch but in that exalted circle of Rome’s intellectual youth. Its influence on literature was considerable; through participation in it Terence developed the elegant precision of his language; and Gaius Lucilius (180-103) perhaps learned here to give a social purpose to the satires with which he lashed the vices and luxury of the age.
The Greek mentors of this group were Polybius and Panaetius. Polybius lived for years in Scipio’s home. He was a realist and a rationalist, and had few illusions about men and states. Panaetius came from Rhodes and, like Polybius, belonged to the Greek aristocracy. For many years he lived with Scipio in affectionate intimacy and reciprocal influence: he stirred Scipio to all the nobility of Stoicism, and probably it was Scipio who persuaded him to modify the extreme ethical demands of that philosophy into a more practicable creed. In a book On Duties Panaetius laid down the central ideas of Stoicism: that man is part of a whole and must co-operate with it—with his family, his country, and the divine Soul of the World; that he is here not to enjoy the pleasures of the senses, but to do his duty without complaint or stint. Panaetius did not, like the earlier Stoics, require a perfect virtue, or complete indifference to the goods and fortunes of life. Educated Romans grasped at this philosophy as a dignified and presentable substitute for a faith in which they had ceased to believe, and found in its ethic a moral code completely congenial to their traditions and ideals. Stoicism became the inspiration of Scipio, the ambition of Cicero, the better self of Seneca, the guide of Trajan, the consolation of Aurelius, and the conscience of Rome.