The Eve of Christianity. By Franklin T. Richards. (Grant Richards.
2s. ed. net.)—We find nothing absolutely novel in this " Glance at the State of the World about the Time of Augustus," but it is a useful and instructive bit of work. It is a zommon fallacy to suppose that the world had become desperately bad, and that Christianity came to save it when it was at it worst. Mr. Richards points out that it was in many respects better than it had been, more civilised, more humane, more eager for truth. Thus it had become prepared for the new order of things ; on the other hand, the great decline in civic virtues worked in the same direction. The Roman Empire was the great seed-bed for the new truth, but there was wanted a time of rest for the seed to germinate. Mr. Richards mentions the tragical story of Julius Sabinus and Epponina, a story of which he remarks that "one would wish to hear nothing or under- stand more." Why was Vespasian so merciless? Possibly because Sabinus claimed descent from the first of the Julian Caesars. A bourgeois Emperor could not afford to let a possible rival live.
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