Phaedrus, flourished about 40 A.D. (Fables in Verse)
  Velleius Paterculus, flourished about 30 A.D. (Historian). 
  Lucan, 39-65 A.D. (Poem on the Civil War). 
  Seneca, about 1-65 A.D. (Tragedies; Philosophical Works). 
  Pliny the Elder, 23-79 A.D. ("Natural History"). 
  Pliny the Younger, 62-about 115 A.D. ("Letters"). 
  Martial, about 45-about 104 A.D. (Epigrams). 
  Quintilian, about 35-about 100 A.D. (Treatise on Oratory and Education). 
  Tacitus, about 55-about 118 A.D. (Historian). 
  Juvenal, about 55-about 135 A.D. (Satirist). 
  Suetonius, about 73-about 118 A.D. ("Lives of the Twelve Caesars"). 
  Minucius Felix, flourished about 160 A.D. (First Christian Apologist). 
  Apuleius, 125-about 200 A.D. ("Metamorphoses,” or “Golden Ass").

e. The Archaizing Period. This period is characterized by a conscious imitation of the Archaic Period of the second and first centuries B.C.; it overlaps the preceding period, and is of importance from a linguistic rather than from a literary point of view.  Of writers who manifest the archaizing tendency most conspicuously may be mentioned Fronto, from whose hand we have a collection of letters addressed to the Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius; also Aulus Gellius, author of the “Attic Nights.”  Both of these writers flourished in the second half of the second century A.D.

f. The Period of the Decline, from 180 to the close of literary activity in the sixth century A.D.  This period is characterized by rapid and radical alterations in the language.  The features of the conversational idiom of the lower strata of society invade the literature, while in the remote provinces, such as Gaul, Spain, Africa, the language suffers from the incorporation of local peculiarities.  Representative writers of this period are: 

  Tertullian, about 160-about 240 A.D. (Christian Writer). 
  Cyprian, about 200-258 A.D. (Christian Writer). 
  Lactantius, flourished about 300 A.D. (Defense of Christianity). 
  Ausonius, about 310-about 395 A.D. (Poet). 
  Jerome, 340-420 A.D. (Translator of the Scriptures). 
  Ambrose, about 340-397 (Christian Father). 
  Augustine, 354-430 (Christian Father—­“City of God"). 
  Prudentius, flourished 400 A.D. (Christian Poet). 
  Claudian, flourished 400 A.D. (Poet). 
  Boethius, about 480-524 A.D. ("Consolation of Philosophy “).

4.  Subsequent History of the Latin Language.—­After the sixth century A.D.  Latin divides into two entirely different streams.  One of these is the literary language maintained in courts, in the Church, and among scholars.  This was no longer the language of people in general, and as time went on, became more and more artificial.  The other stream is the colloquial idiom of the common people, which developed ultimately in the provinces into the modern so-called Romance idioms.  These are the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Provencal (spoken in Provence, i.e. southeastern France), the Rhaeto-Romance (spoken in the Canton of the Grisons in Switzerland), and the Roumanian, spoken in modern Roumania and adjacent districts.  All these Romance languages bear the same relation to the Latin as the different groups of the Indo-European family of languages bear to the parent speech.