Rome was to the entire Roman people, for many generations, as much a religion as Jehovah was to the Jews; nay, much more, for they never fell away from their worship, as the Jews did from theirs. And the Romans, otherwise a selfish people, with no very remarkable faculties of any kind, except the purely practical, derived nevertheless from this one idea a certain greatness of soul, which manifests itself in all their history, where that idea is concerned, and nowhere else, and has earned for them the large share of admiration, in other respects not at all deserved, which has been felt for them by most noble-minded persons from that time to this. — MILL. Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus now divided the Roman world among themselves. Antony took the East, Octavius the West, and Lepidus the province of Africa; but the last named, being weaker than the others, soon dropped out of sight. Antony and Octavius now began to quarrel. The former stayed at Alexandria, where he fell under the influence of Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, for whom he divorced his wife Octavia, sister of Octavius. Octavius then declared war, and defeated Antony and Cleopatra in a sea-fight at Actium, on the west coast of Greece, in 31 B. C. The issue of the long struggle of the nations against the allconquering republic is indeed a momentous event in human annals. The laws and language, the manners and institutions, of Europe still bear witness to the catastrophe of Actium. The results it produced can never recur to our minds without impelling us to reflect upon the results we may suppose it to have averted. - MERIVALE. But Egypt knows her dream a cheat Begot of Mareotic fumes, When the devouring fire consumes, When Cæsar, following in her wake, And load the monster-queen with chains, Or exile from her old domains. HORACE. Tr. Hovenden. Her tresses bound with Actium's crown of bay, OVID. Tr. Church. ROME MISTRESS OF THE WORLD. EGYPT soon after (30 B. C.) was made a Roman province. Rome thus became mistress of all the lands around the Mediterranean. With the exception of the conquest of Britain, in the next century, and some temporary additions at a later period, the Roman territory had now reached its greatest extent, and the Roman power may be regarded as having practically spread over all the lands which could be looked on as forming part of the civilized world. Rome was th' whole world, and al the world was Rome; And if things nam'd their names doo equalize, When land and sea ye name, then name ye Rome; And, naming Rome, ye land and sea comprize: SPENSER. The subject world shall Rome's dominion own, VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden. The self-governing powers that had filled the Old World had bent, one after another, before the rising power of Rome, and had vanished. The earth seemed left void of independent nations. RANKE. Toutes les nations civilisées et une partie des nations barbares étant réunies sous le même sceptre, il n'y eût plus dans l'ancienne monde qu'une seule cité, en travail d'un monde nouveau. Rome onely might to Rome compared bee, And onely Rome could make great Rome to tremble. SPENSER. The exultations, pomps, and cares of Rome, The Palatine, proud Rome's imperial seat, THIERRY. WORDSWORTH. CLAUDIAN. Tr. Addison. When, however, Carthage was conquered and destroyed, when Greece was overrun and plundered, and Egypt, with her longtreasured art, had become a dependent province, Rome was no longer the city of the Aryan Romans, but the sole capital of the civilized world. Into her lap were poured all the artistic riches of the universe; to Rome flocked all who sought a higher distinction or a more extended field for their ambition than their own provincial capitals could then afford. She thus became the centre of all the arts and of all the science then known; and, so far at least as quantity is concerned, she amply redeemed her previous neglect of them. It seems an almost indisputable fact that during the three centuries of the empire more and larger buildings were erected in Rome and her dependent cities than ever were erected in a like period in any part of the world. FERGUSSON. Rome laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a thousand miles in breadth, and within that zone she comprehended not only all the great cities of the ancient world, but so perfectly did she lay the garden of the world in every climate, and for every mode of natural wealth, within her own ring-fence, that since that era no land, no part and parcel of the Roman Empire, has ever risen into strength and opulence, except where unusual artificial industry has availed to counteract the tendencies of nature. So entirely had Rome engrossed whatsoever was rich by the mere bounty of native endowment. Vast, therefore, unexampled, immeasurable, was the basis of natural power upon which the Roman throne reposed. — DE QUINCEY. And what was the case when Rome extended her boundaries? If we follow her history we shall find that she conquered or founded a host of cities. It was with cities she fought, it was with cities she treated, it was into cities she sent colonies. In short, the history of the conquest of the world by Rome is the history of the conquest and foundation of a vast number of cities. It is true that in the East the extension of the Roman dominion bore somewhat of a different character; the population was not distributed there in the same way as in the Western world; it was under a social system, partaking more of the patriarchal form, and was consequently much less concentrated in cities. - GUIZOT. If the world, which resisted every other power, rather welcomed than withstood the Roman rule, it was owing to the new spirit of large and complete aggregation which distinguished it. - COMTE. They [the Romans] vanquished a nation, and contented themselves with weakening it. They imposed conditions upon it which insensibly undermined its power. If it raised itself up, they humbled it yet more, and thus it became subject without any one being able to fix the epoch of its subjugation. Thus Rome was not, properly speaking, either a republic or a monarchy, but the head of a body which was made up of all the peoples of the world. MONTESQUIEU. Tr. Baker. But that which is chiefly to be noted in the whole continuance of the Roman government, they were so liberal of their naturalizations as in effect they made perpetual mixtures. For the manner was to grant the same, not only to particular persons, but to families and lineages; and not only so, but to whole cities and countries. So as in the end it came to that, that Rome was "communis patria," as some of the civilians call it. thority of Nicholas Machiavel seemeth not to be contemned; who, inquiring the causes of the growth of the Roman Empire, doth give judgment; there was not one greater than this, that the state did so easily compound and incorporate with strangers.-LORD BACON. So, likewise, the au All that which Ægypt whilome did devise; All that which Greece their temples to embrave, After th' Ionicke, Atticke, Doricke guise; All that Lysippus practike arte could forme; Was wont this auncient Citie to adorne, And the heaven it selfe with her wide wonders fill Then where, o'er two bright havens, The towers of Corinth frown; Where the gigantic King of day On his own Rhodes looks down; Beneath the laurel shades; Where Nile reflects the endless length Of dark-red colonnades; Where in the still deep water, Sheltered from waves and blasts, Bristles the dusky forest Of Byrsa's thousand masts; Where Atlas flings his shadow Far o'er the Western foam, Shall be great fear on all who hear SPENSER. MACAULAY. Thou art in Rome! the city that so long A reed-roofed cabin by the river-side?) ROGERS. |