CHAPTER X

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TRANSITION FROM LUCILIUS TO LUCRETIUS.

Dearth of poetical works during the next half century 263 Literary taste confined to the upper classes 265 Great advance in Latin prose writing 266 Influence of this on the style of Lucretius and Catullus 267 Closer contact with the mind and art of Greece 268 Effects of the political unsettlement on the contemplative life and thought 270 " on the life of pleasure, and the art founded on it 271 The two representatives of the thought and art of the time 272

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