army returning from Parthia, cultivated society was wrecked, and the
literary movement was greatly interrupted in both languages. This was a
blow to the artificial culture of Greek in Italy, just as the plague of
1349 and following years was a blow to the artificial culture of French
in England. After A.D. 166 a check was given to progress, which
lasted, in the secular domain, until the sixteenth century.

Let us spend a moment upon the sequel of the old literature, before we
come to the new, which is our proper subject here.

Under the altered times that now ensued, the continuity of classicism is
seen in two forms of literature--namely, philological criticism and
poetry. The acknowledged model of Latin poetry was Virgil, and his
greatest imitator was Claudian, who had made himself a Latin scholar by
study, much as the moderns do. Claudian is commonly called the last of
the heathen poets. He has also been called the transitional link between
ancient and modern, between heathen and Christian poetry.[2] One
characteristic may be mentioned, namely, his personification of moral or
personal qualities, a sort of allegory destined to flourish for many
centuries, of which the first mature example appears in the "Soul's
Fight" of Prudentius, the Christian poet, who was a contemporary of
Claudian. The school study of the classics produced grammars, and two
authors became chiefly celebrated in this branch, namely, Donatus and
Priscian. Their books were standards through the Dark and Middle
Ages.[3]

There was one department of prose literature in which Latin was
undisturbed and unsophisticated. This was the department of law and
administration. The legal diction escaped, in a great measure, from the
influence of classicism; it kept on its even way through the whole