THE GEOGRAPHIC ASPECT OF CULTURE 165 



death, because the sum of the figures in the successive multiples of 8 

 decreased successively by one; 9 was the symbol of immortality, since 

 the sum of the figures in the multiples of 9 remains constant, etc. 



Plato, the great philosopher of the later Athenian school, also re- 

 garded mathematics as the basis of his philosophy, placing over his 

 door the famous inscription, " Let none ignorant of geometry enter 

 here." It is also noteworthy that when he was questioned as to the 

 occupation of the Deity, Plato replied, " He geometrizes continually." 

 This lofty idealism was characteristic of Greece and entirely foreign 

 to the prosaic civilizations of Egypt and Assyria. Only the combina- 

 tion of sea, mountain and climate found in Hellas could produce the 

 unique type of the Grecian genius. This dependence of type on surround- 

 ings is evidenced by the fixity of type apparent in ancient races. Thus 

 the Fellaheen still bear the imprint of the Pharaohs on their counte- 

 nances, and draw water with the Shadoof as at the dawn of history, 

 while the Chinaman is still found reckoning with the beaded " swan 

 pan," invented twenty-six centuries before Christ. 



Passing from Greece to Italy, as the next stage in the evolution of 

 culture, another great change is manifest. Italy presents no such 

 natural unity as offered by the valley of the Nile and the Tigro-Eu- 

 phrates basin, nor does it present the diversity of Greece. A narrow 

 peninsula bounded by the sea on three sides and lofty mountains on 

 the fourth, the physical peculiarities of Italy naturally cemented the 

 diverse tribes with which it was originally peopled into a single state. 

 The origin of the Imperial city dated from a predatory band of Latin 

 shepherds who received into their community the outcasts of the 

 neighboring tribes, so that even at the outset the dominant idea was 

 that of physical force, a principle which pervades the whole fabric of 

 Eoman civilization. The rape of the Sabine women confirms the tra- 

 dition that the band, being without women, was a predatory union of 

 outcasts, or what Livy calls a " colluvies." The growth of the Eoman 

 state was throughout a process of accretion, rather than the unfolding 

 of a vital principle. The civilization of the Eomans was likewise due 

 to this policy of absorption, borrowing their religion and culture from 

 surrounding nations. But while the gods of the Greeks and the Egyp- 

 tians found a home on the banks of the Tiber, they were there wor- 

 shipped in a spirit entirely foreign to that of their nativity, for whereas 

 the Greeks worshipped their divinities from an innate love of abstract 

 beauty, the Eomans worshipped the same gods from a spirit of neces- 

 sity, bargaining with them for physical protection and material suc- 

 cess. Again, although the Eomans borrowed the Grecian games, they 

 had no idea of the esthethic pleasure derived by the Greeks from per- 

 fect physical development, but degraded them into mere gladiatorial 

 combats or exhibitions of brute force in which they were spectators and 



