Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/423

ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 399 Antonines, seems to have travelled for pleasure, and then, after he had come home, compiled an account of what he had seen, or ought to have seen, out of some book or books at least three hundred years old ! That is the only way to explain his odd habit of not mention- ing even the most conspicuous monuments erected after 150 B.C. Nay, his modern critics assure us that some- times when he says '/ was told' or '/ myself saw,' he is only quoting his old traveller without changing the person of the verb. This is damaging to Pausanias per- sonally, but it increases the value of his guide-book ; which, if often inaccurate and unsystematic, is a most rich and ancient source of information, quite unique in value both to archaeologists and to students of custom and religion. It was Pausanias, for instance, who directed Schliemann to Mycenae. In philosophy proper, the professional Stoic is best represented to us in the Lectures and the Handbook of Epict£ti:s, a Phrygian slave by origin, and a cripple, who obtained his freedom and became a lecturer at Rome. Expelled thence, in 94 A.D., by Domitian's notorious edict against the philosophers, he settled at Nicopolis, in Epirus, where he lived to enjoy the friendship of Trajan, and, it is said, also of Hadrian (117-138 A.D.). Epictetus illustrates the difference of this age from that of Plato or also of Chrysippus, in that he practically abandons all speculation, and confines himself to , dogmatic practical ethics. He accepts, indeed, and hands on the speculative basis of morality as laid down by the earlier Stoics, but his real strength is in preaching and edification. He called his school a ^^ healing- place for diseased souls!' Such a profession is slightly repellent ; but the breadth