BY W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. AUTHOR OF “LIFE OF JULIUS CÆSAR,” “THE CITY-STATE OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS,” “SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME IN THE AGE OF CICERO,” ETC. NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE Copyright , 1912, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A....

Let us suppose an ordinary Englishman, with no special knowledge of classical history, to be looking at a collection of Roman antiquities in the cases of a museum. He will probably not linger long over these cases, but will pass on to something more likely to attract his interest. The objects he is looking at are, for the most part, neither striking nor beautiful, and the same are presented for his inspection over and over again as collections from various Roman sites. They are chiefly useful th

I said in the last chapter that if Rome could only hold the line of the lower Tiber against the Etruscans, great possibilities of advance were open to her. How long she held it we do not know; but there is hardly a doubt that in course of time—some time probably in the sixth century B.C. —she lost it, and even herself fell into the hands of the enemy. The tale is not told in her legendary annals; but we have other convincing evidence. The last three kings of Rome seem to have been Etruscans. The

I have mentioned some outward circumstances which gave Rome an early training in war and diplomacy, and in particular her geographical position, exposing her to constant attack, and yet giving her good chance of striking back and advancing. But to accomplish all that was told of her in the last chapter, more than this was surely needed. There must have been a quality in this people, individually and as a whole, fitting them to withstand so much storm and stress, and to emerge from disaster with

In these days sober students of history wisely leave the oft-told stories of war and battle, and busy themselves rather with questions of social life, public and private economy, and the history of religion, morals and scientific inquiry. But there are a few wars, great struggles of nation against nation, which will always have an absorbing interest: partly because of their dramatic character, partly because of their far-reaching consequences; and the long fight between Rome and Carthage is assu

“It was not merely that the disasters of the war had opened the eyes of public men to abuses which had grown up among them; it was not that they hastened to take measures by which such disasters might be prevented from occurring again. Not so much foresight as this was required. The question was at once simpler and more urgently pressing: it was how to prevent the cultivation of the country from falling into a condition of permanent decay.... Not only did it become necessary to inquire of politi

Enough was said in the last chapter to show that the age we are now coming to, the last century before Christ, was one full of great issues—not only for Rome, but for all western civilisation. The perils threatening, both internal and external, were so real as to call for statesmen and soldiers of the highest quality; and as we shall see, this call was answered. It was this century that produced most of the famous Romans whose names are familiar to us: the two Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Cic

With the death of Sulla ends what we may call the first act of the Roman Revolution. We are now in the middle of a revolution in more than one sense of that word. The constitution and the government of Rome are being slowly but surely changed, and at the same time the era of the free and independent city-state of the Græco-Roman world is being brought to an end. Both these changes, as we can see now, were inevitable; without them the civilised world could not have been defended against barbarian

The death of Julius Cæsar seemed to plunge the world once more into darkness. We have evidence enough of the general feeling of horror and despair,—a despair hard to realise in our days, when settled and orderly government saves us from all serious anxiety about our lives and property. Power fell into the hands of a far more unscrupulous man than Cæsar, the Mark Antony of Shakespeare’s play; but he had a rival in Cæsar’s nephew and adopted son, afterwards known as Augustus. Civil war, of course,

Now that we have seen the Empire made comparatively secure by Augustus, and set in the way of development on what seem to be rational principles, let us pause and try to gain some idea of the social life going on within it: excluding that of the city of Rome, which is no longer of the old paramount importance. How did the inhabitants of the Empire live and occupy themselves during the first two centuries of our era? The first point to make quite sure of is that this life was in the main a life i

The chief work of Rome in the world, as has often been said in this little book, was the defence of Mediterranean civilisation against external enemies. That work was of a double nature. It could not be done simply by marking out and holding lines of frontier; it was also necessary so to organise the Empire within its frontiers that the whole should contribute to the common object, with men, money and public spirit. The last two chapters will have shown that from the time of Julius and Augustus

The following books are suggested as among those most likely to be useful to students who wish to pursue the subject further— I. Large Histories. Mommsen : History of Rome to the Death of Cæsar , with an additional volume entitled The Provinces of the Roman Empire ; the whole, in the English translation, is in seven volumes. Heitland : The Roman Republic , in three volumes (a recent publication). Gibbon : The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , edited by Prof. Bury. II. Smaller histories in o