THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS. 



167 



land, at Culloden, formed in three lines, so as to 

 repair a broken front. The Romans, in like man- 

 ner, formed in three lines — hastati, principes, and 

 triarii — evidently with the same object. Our 

 knowledge of the history of Roman tactics does 

 not enable us to say exactly at what period this 

 formation began to supersede the phalanx, which 

 appears to have preceded it, and which is the 

 natural order of half-disciplined or imperfectly- 

 armed masses, as we see in the case of the army 

 formed by Philip out of the Macedonian peas- 

 antry, and again in the case of the French Rev- 

 olutionary columns. We cannot say, therefore, 

 whether this formation in three lines is any way 

 traceable to experience dearly bought in wars 

 with Italian highlanders, or to a lesson taught by 

 the terrible onset of the Gaul. Again, the punc- 

 tilious care in the intrenchment of the camp, 

 even for a night's halt, which moved the admira- 

 tion of Pyrrhus and was a material part of Ro- 

 man tactics, was likely to be inculcated by the 

 perils to which a burgher army would be exposed 

 in carrying on war under or among hills, and 

 always liable to the sudden attack of a swift, 

 sure-footed, and wily foe. The habit of carrying 

 a heavy load of palisades on the march would be 

 a part of the same necessity. 



Even from the purely' military point of view, 

 then, the she-wolf and the twins seem to us not 

 appropriate emblems of Roman greatness. A 

 better frontispiece for historians of Rome, if we 

 mistake not, would be some symbol of the pa- 

 troness of the lowlands and their protectress 

 against the wild tribes of the highlands. There 

 should also be something to symbolize the pro- 

 tectress of Italy against the Gauls, whose irrup- 

 tions Rome, though defeated at Allia, succeeded 

 ultimately in arresting and hurling back, to the 

 general benefit of Italian civilization, which, we 

 may be sure, felt very grateful to her for that 

 service, and remembered it when her existence 

 was threatened by Hannibal, with Gauls in his 

 army. Capua, though not so well situated for 

 the leadership of Italy, might have played the 

 part of Rome; but the plain which she com- 

 manded, though very rich, was too small, and too 

 closely overhung by the fatal hills of the Sam- 

 nites, under whose dominion she fell. Rome had 

 space to organize a strong lowland resistance to 

 the marauding highland powers. It seems prob- 

 able that her hills were not only the citadel but 

 the general refuge of the lowlanders of those 

 parts, when forced to fly before the onslaught of 

 the highlanders, who were impelled by successive 

 wars of migration to the plains. The Campagua 



affords no stronghold or rallying-point but those 

 hills, which may have received a population of 

 fugitives like the islands of Venice. The" city 

 may have drawn part of its population and some 

 of its political elements from this source. In 

 this sense the story of the Asylum may possibly 

 represent a part, though it has itself nothing to 

 do with history. 



Then, as to imperial organization and govern- 

 ment. Superiority in these would naturally flow 

 from superiority in civilization, and in previous 

 political training. The former Rome derived from 

 her comparative wealth and from the mental char- 

 acteristics of a city population ; the latter she 

 derived from the long struggle through which the 

 rights of the plebeians were equalized with those 

 of the patricians, and which again must have had 

 its ultimate origin in geographical circumstance 

 bringing together different elements of popula- 

 tion. Cromwell was a politician and a religious 

 leader before he was a soldier ; Napoleon was a 

 soldier before he was a politician : to this differ- 

 ence between the moulds in which their charac- 

 ters were cast may be traced, in great measure, 

 the difference of their conduct when in power, 

 Cromwell devoting himself to political and eccle- 

 siastical reform, while Napoleon used his suprem- 

 acy chiefly as the means of gratifying his lust for 

 war. There is something analogous in the case of 

 imperial nations. Had the Roman, when he con- 

 quered the world, been like the Ottoman, like the 

 Ottoman he would probably have remained. His 

 lust of blood and pillage slaked, be would simply 

 have proceeded to slake his other animal lusts ; he 

 would havedestroyed or consumed everything, pro- 

 duced nothing, delivered over the world to a plun- 

 dering anarchy of rapacious satraps, and when his 

 sensuality had overpowered his ferocity, he would 

 have fallen, in his turn, before some horde whose 

 ferocity was fresh, and the round of war and havoc 

 would have commenced again. The Roman de- 

 stroyed and consumed a good deal ; but he also 

 produced not a little : he produced, among other 

 things, first in Italy, then in the world at large, the 

 peace of Rome, indispensable to civilization, and 

 destined to be the germ and precursor of the peace 

 of humanity. 



In two respects, however, the geographical cir- 

 cumstances of Rome appear specially to have pre- 

 pared her for the exercise of universal empire. 

 In the first place, her position was such as to 

 bring her into contact from the outset with a 

 great variety of races. The cradle of her domin- 

 ion was a sort of ethnological microcosm. Lat- 

 ins, Etruscans, Greeks, Campanians, with all the 



