168 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



mountain races and the Gauls, make up a school 

 of the most diversified experience, which could 

 not fail to open the minds of the future masters 

 of the world. How different was this education 

 from that of a people which is either isolated, like 

 the Egyptians, or comes into contact perhaps in 

 the way of continual border hostility with a sin- 

 gle race ! What the exact relations of Rome were 

 with Etruria in the earliest times we do not know, 

 but evidently they were close ; while between the 

 Roman and the Etruscan character the difference 

 appears to have been as wide as possible. The 

 Roman was preeminently practical and business- 

 like, sober-minded, moral, unmystical, unsacerdo- 

 tal, much concerned with present duties and in- 

 terests, very little concerned about a future state 

 of existence, peculiarly averse from human sacri- 

 fices and from all wild and dark superstitions. 

 The Etruscan, as he has portrayed himself to us 

 in his tomb, seems to have been, in his later de- 

 velopment at least, a mixture of Sybaritism with 

 a gloomy and almost Mexican religion, which 

 brooded over the terrors of the next world, and 

 sought in the constant practice of human sacri- 

 fice a relief from its superstitious fear. If the 

 Roman could tolerate the Etruscans, be merciful 

 to them, and manage them well, he was qualified 

 to deal in a statesmanlike way with the peculiari- 

 ties of almost any race, except those whose fierce 

 nationality repelled all management whatever. 

 In borrowing from the Etruscans some of their 

 theological lore and their system of divination, 

 small as the value of the things borrowed was, 

 the Roman, perhaps, gave an earnest of the re- 

 ceptiveness which led him afterward, in his hour 

 of conquest, to bow to the intellectual ascendency 

 of the conquered Greek, and to become a propa- 

 gator of Greek culture, though partly in a Latin- 

 ized form, more effectual than Alexander and his 

 Orientalized successors. 



In the second place, the geographical circum- 

 stances of Rome, combined with her character, 

 would naturally lead to (he foundation of colonies 

 and of that colonial system which formed a most 

 important and beneficent part of her empire. We 

 have derived the name colony from Rome ; but 

 her colonies were just what ours are not, military 

 outposts of the empire, propngnacula imperii. 

 Political depletion and provision for needy citi- 

 zens were collateral, but it would seem, in early 

 times at least, secondary objects. Such outposts 

 were the means suggested by Nature, first of se- 

 curing those parts of the plain which were beyond 

 the sheltering range of the city itself, secondly of 

 guarding the outlets of the hills against the hill 



tribes, and eventually of holding down the tribes 

 in the hills themselves. The custody of the passes 

 is especially marked as an object by the position 

 of many of the early colonies. When the Roman 

 dominion extended to the north of Italy, the same 

 system was pursued, in order to guard against 

 incursions from the Alps. A conquering despot 

 would have planted mere garrisons under military 

 governors, which would not have been centres of 

 civilization, but probably of the reverse. The 

 Roman colonies, bearing onward with them the 

 civitas well as the military life of the republic, 

 were, with the general system of provincial mu- 

 nicipalities of which they constituted the core, 

 to no small extent centres of civilization, though 

 doubtless they were also to some extent instru- 

 ments of oppression. " Where the Roman con- 

 quered he dwelt," and the dwelling of the Roman 

 was, on the whole, the abode of a civilizing in- 

 fluence. Representation of dependencies in the 

 sovereign assembly of the imperial country was 

 unknown, and would have been impracticable. 

 Conquest had not so far put off its iron nature. 

 In giving her dependencies municipal institutions 

 and municipal life, Rome did the next best thing 

 j to giving them representation. A Roman prov- 

 ince with its municipal life was far above a sa- 

 trapy, though far below a nation. 



Then how came Rome to be the foundress and 

 the great source of law? This, as we said be- 

 fore, calls for a separate explanation. An expla- 

 nation I do not pretend to give, but merely a hint 

 which may deserve notice in looking for the ex- 

 planation. In primitive society, in place of law, 

 in the proper sense of the term, we find only 

 tribal custom, formed mainly by the special ex- 

 igencies of tribal self-preservation, and confined 

 to the particular tribe. When Saxon and Pane 

 settle down in England, side by side, under the 

 treaty made between Alfred and Guthurm, each 

 race retains the tribal custom which serves it as 

 a criminal law. A special effort seems to be re- 

 quired, in order to rise above this custom to that 

 conception of general right or expediency which 

 is the germ of law as a science. The Greek, 

 skeptical and speculative as he was, appears never 

 to have quite got rid of the notion that there was 

 something sacred in ancestral custom, and that to 

 alter it by legislation was a sort of impiety. We, 

 in England, still fancy that there is something in 

 the breast of the judge, and that something is a 

 lingering shadow of the tribal custom, the source 

 of the common law. Now what conditions would 

 be most favorable to this critical effort, so fraught 

 with momentous consequences to humanity ? Ap- 



