282 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xl sophy, received an annual stipend of ten thousand drachmae, or more than three hundred pounds sterling. 148 After the death of Marcus, these liberal donations, and the privileges attached to the thrones of science, were abolished and revived, diminished and enlarged ; but some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of Constantine ; and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate might tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret the days of independence and poverty. 149 It is remarkable that the impartial favour of the Antonines was bestowed on the four adverse sects of philosophy, which they considered as equally useful, or at least as equally innocent. Socrates had formerly been the glory and the reproach of his country ; and the first lessons of Epicurus so strangely scandal- ized the pious ears of the Athenians that by his exile, and that of his antagonists, they silenced all vain disputes concerning the nature of the gods. But in the ensuing year they recalled the hasty decree, restored the liberty of the schools, and were con- vinced, by the experience of ages, that the moral character of philosophers is not affected by the diversity of their theological speculations. 150 They are The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens by Justin- than the establishment of a new religion, whose ministers super- seded the exercise of reason, resolved every question by an article of faith, and condemned the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames. In many a volume of laborious controversy, they ex- posed the weakness of the understanding and the corruption of the heart, insulted human nature in the sages of antiquity, and proscribed the spirit of philosophical inquiry, so repugnant to the doctrine, or at least to the temper, of an humble believer. The surviving sect of the Platonists, whom Plato would have blushed to acknowledge, extravagantly mingled a sublime theory 148 See Lucian (in Eunuch, torn. ii. p. 350-359, edit. Eeitz), Philostratus (in Vit. Sophist. I. ii. o. 2), and Dion Cassius, or Xiphilin (1. lxxi. p. 1195 [c. 31]), with their editors Du Soul, Olearius, and Beimar, and, above all, Salmasius (ad Hist. August. p. 72). A judicious philosopher (Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. p. 340-374) prefers the free contributions of the students to a fixed stipend for the professor. 149 Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. torn. ii. p. 310, &c. 150 The birth of Epicurus is fixed to the year 342 before Christ (Bayle), Olympiad oix. 3 ; and he opened his school at Athens, Olymp. cxviii. 3, 306 years before the same cera. This intolerant law (Athenseus, 1. xiii. p. 610. Diogen. Laertius, 1. v. s. 38, p. 290 [c. 2]. Julius Pollux, ix. 5) was enacted in the same, or the succeed- ing, year (Sigonius, Opp. torn. v. p. 62. Menagius, ad Diogen. Laert. p. 204. Corsini, Fasti Attioi, torn. iv. p. 67, 68). Theophrastus, chief of the Peripatetics, and disciple of Aristotle, was involved in the same exile.
