The end of the 3d century, after a long period of anarchy, was occupied by the firm reign of Diocletian, a self-made man, the son of poor parents, who owed his advance to his military genius. He reined for some 21 years (284-305) and then (see FOURTH CEN TURY) resigned and retired to a pleasant country estate not far from Dioclea, his birthplace in Asia Minor. When in the midst of the critical times for the empire which followed his abdica tion, Maximilian, one of his successors, urged him to take up the imperial mantle again, he re plied: 'xIf you could but see the cabbages which I raise in my garden with my own hands, you would no longer talk to me of abandoning this happy spot for the Empire.x' As might well be expected, the man who was capable of this could and did give the Roman Empire years of peace and prosperity, stained unfortunately by the persecution of the Christians, but that did not come until the beginning of the 4th cen tury and under the influence of those who shared the empire with him.
While the 3d century produced no great authors a series of men wrote books that have attracted attention ever since. Plotinus (204 270), the well-known Neoplatonic philosopher who studied at Alexandria and afterward taught philosophy in Rome, wrote his about the middle of the century. He was an
eclectic, borrowing from many sources, and is a Neo-Aristotelian as well as a Platonist and de serves the name of Neo-philosopher. His disciple Porphyry (233-305) wrote a life of Plotinus and also of Pythagoras, but is best known for his treatise aAgainst the Christians,D which was answered by Eusebius at the be ginmng of the 4th century. It is known to us only from Jerome's commentary and other Christian criticisms. Longinus (210-273), the author of the essay (On the Sublime' also be longs to this time and spent most of his mature life at the court of Zenobia in Palmyra. He was as we have said her chief counsellor and instructor nstructor of her children but on the fall of Zenobia he was put to death as a traitor by the Emperor Aurelian. Jebb declared the es say (On the Sublime' one of the best pieces of literary criticism in the Greek language. (See ON THE SUBLIME). Papinian, the greatest civil lawyer of antiquity, and Dio Cassius (155-230), the Greek historian of Rome, both flourished during the first quarter of the century. Dio's whole work in 80 books was in existence in the 10th century, only some 25 books XXVI to LX now remain nearly complete with but fragments of the others.