

INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 567 



The influence of the Roman dominion as a constant element 

 of union and fusion required the more urgently and forcibly 

 to be brought forward in a history of the contemplation of the 

 universe, since we are able to recognise the traces of this 

 influence in its remotest consequences even at a period when 

 the bond of political union had become less compact, and was 

 even partially destroyed by the inroads of barbarians. Clau- 

 dian, who stands forth in the decline of literature during the 

 latter and more disturbed age of Theodosius the Great and 

 his sons, distinguished for the endowment of a revived poetic 

 productiveness, still sings, in too highly laudatory strains, 

 of the dominion of the Romans.* 



Hcec est, in gremium victos quce sola recepit, 



Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit, 



Matris, non domince, ritu; civesque vocavit 



Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxiL 



Hujus pacificis debemus morions omnes 



Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur hospes. . . . 



External means of constraint, artificially arranged civil 

 institutions, and long continued servitude, might certainly 

 tend to unite nations by destroying the individual existence 

 of each one, but the feeling of the unity and common condition 

 of the whole human race, and of the equal rights of all men, has 

 a nobler origin, and is based on the internal promptings of 

 the spirit and on the force of religious convictions. Christianity 

 has materially contributed to call forth this idea of the unity 

 of the human race and has thus tended to exercise a 

 favourable influence on the humanisation of nations in their 

 morals, manners, and institutions. Although closely inter- 

 woven with the earliest doctrines of Christianity, this idea of 

 humanity met with only a slow and tardy recognition, for at 

 the time when the new faith was raised at Byzantium, from 

 political motives, to be the established religion of the state, its 

 adherents were already deeply involved in miserable party 

 dissensions, whilst intercourse with distant nations was 

 impeded, and the foundations of the empire were shaken in 

 many directions by external assaults. Even the personal 

 freedom of entire races of men long found no protection in 

 Christian states, from ecclesiastical landowners and corporate 

 bodies. 



* C!audian in Secundum consulatum Stilliclionis, v. 150-155. 



