THE VICES AND VIRTUES OF ROME 91 



But the first task is to show how this little pastoral 

 people in the south became strong enough to conquer 

 all their neighbours. Why they should wish to do 

 it we need not stay to examine ; for in those old 

 days — so different from ours ! — there was only one 

 limit to your desires, and that was the limit of your 

 strength. But let us not be cynical. Civilization is, 

 as I said, a thin film of fine sentiments and ideals 

 trying to check human impulses that had run wild 

 for a million years, and the film was naturally thinner 

 and younger in the old world than it is to-day. The 

 Romans were no worse than others, but they were 

 differently situated. Many experts believe that two 

 peoples — two branches of the Aryan race — are mingled 

 in the Romans when we first catch sight of them. 

 The great class-division of the Romans was into 

 patricians (the rich) and plebeians (the workers, the 

 relatively poor) ; and it is supposed that the patricians 

 represent the Sabines, who in the sixth century 

 united with the Latins (the plebs) to drive the 

 Etruscan outposts from the Roman district. 



Rome was their market-town and their chief centre 

 for checking the Etruscans. It had remarkable 

 advantages. The visitor to Rome to-day has some 

 difficulty in recognizing its famous " seven hills." 

 They are gentle elevations over which the tide of 

 masonry easily flows. But in those primitive days 

 a small central site sheltering between seven hills 

 was very useful. Most early towns had merely one 

 central hill, to which the inhabitants could retire 

 when the enemy appeared. The Romans could pack 

 their cattle and wives in the central valley while the 

 men lined the hills. 



As in Greece, the organization was such that in 



