Chapter VII 



THE VICES AND VIRTUES OF ROME 



We have already seen the close relationship of the 

 early Greeks and the early Romans. The traditions 

 of both peoples — indeed, of all ancient peoples — were 

 almost entirely legendary, and it has remained for 

 modern science to learn, laboriously, the movements 

 of the race in that dim dawn of history. Naturally, 

 our knowledge is still very imperfect, but we have a 

 confident picture of the general situation. During 

 the later part of the New Stone Age, or while Egypt 

 and Babylon were building up their civilizations, the 

 large family of white- skinned tribes which, for con- 

 venience, we may still call the Aryan race was 

 moving towards the south of Europe. One branch 

 represented the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans, 

 and in the region of the Danube it divided. One 

 section found its way through the mountain-passes 

 to Greece. Another section took the route to central 

 Italy. 



Long before modern archaeology came into existence 

 it was known that a civilized people existed in Italy 

 before the Romans. Latin literature itself betrayed 

 the debt of the Romans to these Etruscans, as they 

 were called, far more clearly than Greek literature 

 showed a debt to the Cretans. The Etruscan civiliza- 

 tion, in fact, flourished for a time side by side with 

 that of Rome. It then lay to the north of Rome, 



