Chapter XXII: Introduction

PLACE OF ROME IN HISTORY.--Rome is the bridge which unites, while it separates, the ancient and the modern world. The history of Rome is the narrative of the building up of a single City, whose dominion gradually spread until it comprised all the countries about the Mediterranean, or what were then the civilized nations. "In this great empire was gathered up the sum total that remained of the religions, laws, customs, languages, letters, arts, and sciences of all the nations of antiquity which had successively held sway or predominance." Under the system of Roman government and Roman law they were combined in one ordered community. It was out of the wreck of the ancient Roman Empire that the modern European nations were formed. Their likeness to one another, their bond of fellowship, is due to the heritage of laws, customs, letters, religion, which they have received in common from Rome.

THE INHABITANTS OF ANCIENT ITALY.--Until a late period in Roman history, the Apennines, and not the Alps, were the northern boundary of Italy. The most of the region between the Alpine range and the Apennines, on both sides of the Po, was inhabited by _Gauls_, akin to the Celts of the same name north of the Alps. On the west of Gallia were the _Ligurians_, a rough people of unknown extraction. People thought to be of the same race as the Ligurians dwelt in _Sardinia_ and in _Corsica_, and in a part of _Sicily_. On the east of Gallia were the Venetians, whose lineage is not ascertained. The Apennines branch off from the Alps in a southeasterly direction until they near the Adriatic, when they turn to the south, and descend to the extreme point of the peninsula, thus forming the backbone of Italy. On the west, in the central portion of the peninsula, is the hilly district called by the ancients, _Etruria_ (now Tuscany), and the plains of _Latium_ and _Campania_. What is now termed _Campania_, the district about Rome, is a part of ancient Latium. The _Etrurians_ differed widely, both in appearance and in language, from the Romans. They were not improbably _Aryans_, but nothing more is known of their descent. In the east, in what is now _Calabria_, and in _Apulia_, there was another people, the _Iapygians_, whose origin is not certain, but who were not so far removed from the Greeks as from the Latins. The southern and south-eastern portions of the peninsula were the seat of the _Greek_ settlements, and the country was early designated _Great Greece_. Leaving out the Etrurians, Iapygians, and Greeks, Italy, south of Gallia, was inhabited by nations allied to one another, and more remotely akin to the Greeks. These Italian nations were divided into an eastern and a western stock. The western stock, the _Latins_, whose home was in Latium, were much nearer of kin to the Greeks than were the eastern. The eastern stock comprised the _Umbrians_ and the _Oscans_. It included the Sabines, Samnites, and Lucanians.

We are certain, that, "from the common cradle of peoples and
languages, there issued a stock which embraced in common the
ancestors of the Greeks and the Italians; that from this, at a
subsequent period, the Italians branched off; and that these divided
again into the western and eastern stocks, while, at a still later
date, the eastern became subdivided into Umbrians and Oscans."
(Mommsen's _History of Rome_, vol. i., p. 36.)

ITALY AND GREECE.--In two important points, Italy is geographically distinguished from Greece. The sea-coast of Italy is more uniform, not being broken by bays and harbors; and it is not cut up, like Greece, by chains of mountains, into small cantons. The Romans had not the same inducement to become a sea-faring people; there were fewer cities; there was an opportunity for closer and more extended leagues. It is remarkable that the outlets of Greece were towards the east; those of Italy towards the west. The two nations were thus averted from one another: they were, so to speak, back to back.

THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.--The Greeks and Romans, although sprung from a common ancestry, and preserving common features in their language, and to some extent in their religion, were very diverse in their natural traits. The Greeks had more genius: the Romans more stability. In art and letters the Romans had little originality. In these provinces they were copyists of the Greeks: they lacked ideality. They had, also, far less delicacy of perception, flexibility, and native refinement of manners. But they had more sobriety of character and more endurance. They were a _disciplined_ people; and in their capacity for discipline lay the secret of their supremacy in arms and of their ability to give law to the world. If they produced a much less number of great men than the Greeks, there was more widely diffused among Roman citizens a conscious dignity and strength. The Roman was naturally _grave_: the fault of the Greek was _levity_. _Versatility_ belonged to the Greek: _virility_ to the Roman. Above all, the sense of right and of justice was stronger among the Romans. They had, in an eminent degree, the political instinct, the capacity for governing, and for building up a political system on a firm basis. This trait was connected with their innate reverence for authority, and their habit of obedience. The noblest product of the Latin mind is the _Roman law_, which is the foundation of almost all modern codes. With all their discernment of justice and love of order, the Romans, however, were too often hard and cruel. Their history is stained here and there with acts of unexampled atrocity. In private life, too, when the rigor of self-control gave way, they sunk into extremes of vulgar sensuality. If, compared with the Greeks, they stood morally at a greater height, they might fall to a lower depth.

THE ROMAN RELIGION.--The difference between the Greek and Roman mind was manifest in the sphere of religion. Before their separation from one another they had brought from the common hearthstone elements of worship which both retained. _Jupiter_, like _Zeus_, was the old Aryan god of the shining sky. But the Greek conception, even of the chief deity, differed from the Roman. When the Romans came into intercourse with the Greeks, they identified the Greek divinities with their own, and more and more appropriated the tales of the Greek mythology, linking them to their own deities. Of the early worship peculiar to the Romans, we know but little. But certain traits always belonged to the Roman religion. Their mood was too prosaic to invent a theogony, to originate stories of the births, loves, and romantic adventures of the gods, such as the Greek fancy devised. The Roman myths were heroic, not religious: they related to the deeds of valiant men. Their deities were, in the first place, much more abstract, less vividly conceived, less endowed with distinct personal characteristics. And, secondly, their service to the gods was more punctilious and methodical. It was regulated, down to the minutiæ, by fixed rules. Worship was according to law, was something due to the gods, and was discharged, like any other debt, exactly, and at the proper time. The Roman took advantage of technicalities in dealing with his gods: he was legal to the core. The word _religion_ had the same root as _obligation_. It denoted the bondage or service owed by man to the gods in return for their protection and favor; and hence the anxiety, or scrupulous watchfulness against the omission of what is required to avert the displeasure of the powers above.

ORIGIN OF THE ROMANS.--The Romans attributed their origin to the mythical _Æneas_, who fled, with a band of fugitives, from the flames of _Troy_, and whose son, _Ascanius_, or _Iulus_, settled in _Alba Longa_, in Latium. What is known of the foundation of Rome is, that it was a settlement of Latin farmers and traders on the group of hills, seven in number, near the border of Latium, on the _Tiber_. It was the head of navigation for small vessels, and Rome was at first, it would seem, the trading-village for the exchange of the products of the farming-district in which it was placed. Such an outpost would be useful to guard Latium against the _Etrurians_ across the river. Of the three townships, or clans, which united to form Rome,--the _Ramnes_, the _Tities_, and the _Luceres_,--the first and third were Latin. The second, which was _Sabine_, blended with the Roman element, as the language proves. The clans, or tribes, in Latium together formed a league, the central meeting-place of which was at first _Alba Longa_. There is some reason to think that the Sabines were from _Cures_ near Rome. Certain it is that Rome, even at the outset, derived its strength from a combination of tribes.

PERIOD I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS AND THE PATRICIANS. (753-304 B.C.)