EUROPE 



3016 



EUROPE 



Later than the Greeks in the 

 Balkan peninsula, and developing 

 more slowly, the Latin or Italian 

 branch of the same or of a kindred 

 stock found its way through the 

 passes hi N. Italy, crossed the 

 Lombard plain, and pushed S., 

 breaking across the Apennines into 

 the W. plains. There they fought 

 with the earlier inhabitants, not- 

 ably the Etruscans, supposed by 

 some authorities to have been of 

 the same race as the makers of the 

 Cretan civilization. On the W. of 

 the Apennines they, like the 

 Greeks, developed politically on 

 the city state system, the Latin 

 states warring with each other, but 

 uniting against the Etruscans on 

 the N., and the new tribes of their 

 own kinsfolk, Sabellians or Sam- 

 nites, who followed them. Greeks 

 and Italians alike seem to have 

 passed through a stage when each 

 state had an hereditary monarch 

 to a stage when the monarchy was 

 absorbed by an aristocracy, dis- 

 placed in its turn by a military 

 despotism or tyranny. 



The Rise of Rome 



The primacy among the Latin 

 states, whose league stretched S. 

 from the Tiber, was won towards 

 the end of the 6th century B.C. by 

 the Romans, whose city, Rome, 

 founded according to tradition in 

 753 B.C., was the barrier fortress 

 holding the Tiber between Etrus- 

 cans and Latins. 



The next 200 years formed the 

 most brilliant period in Greek 

 history, in which first the Hel- 

 lenes stemmed the westward 

 pressure of the Asiatic powers, then 

 carried their own political, literary, 

 and artistic development to its 

 highest point, and finally, led by 

 Alexander the Great, shattered the 

 great empire of Persia. The passion 

 of each state for individual inde- 

 pendence and their mutual jeal- 

 ousies prevented the Greeks from 

 building up a common national 

 structure. Neither Athens nor 

 Sparta succeeded in establishing 

 her own supremacy over the rest 

 of the states ; Macedon at last won 

 the leadership about 340 B.C., but 

 failed to create a united empire. 



Meanwhile Rome, after a severe 

 struggle, broke up the Etruscan 

 power, which received its coup de 

 grace at the hands of Celtic in- 

 vaders from the N., who pene- 

 trated as far as Rome (394 B.C.), 

 but then rolled back beyond the 

 Apennines to the plain of the Po. 

 It would appear that long after 

 the first Celtic migration, which 

 had passed Italy by, a second 

 great Celtic flood poured across 

 Europe till it collided with its own 

 Celtic predecessors. The result 

 was that the S. wing, being beaten 



back, forced its way into Italy and 

 occupied the N. plain. 



The Romans blocked the Celtic 

 invasion of Italy, and, freed from 

 the severe Etruscan pressure on the 

 N., gradually came to dominate the 

 Latin states and the kindred 

 tribes, first known as Sabines and 

 then as Samnites, who were 

 pushed down on the E. and S., 

 after the Latin occupation of the 

 lands W. of the Apennines. Rome, 

 compelled by her position to main- 

 tain a political organization adap- 

 ted to military needs, won in Italy 

 an undisputed ascendancy over 

 her rivals. 



Meanwhile Hellas had attained 

 the high-water mark of her pro- 

 gress with Alexander the Great, 

 whose death in 323 B.C. left his un- 

 completed empire to a century of 

 disintegration. That same century, 

 300-200 B.C., saw the great struggle 

 between Rome and the Semitic 

 power of Carthage, which had estab- 

 lished itself in N. Africa, to some 

 degree in Sicily, and in Spain. 

 Carthage was not decisively crushed 

 until 202 B. c. Italy had supported 

 Rome in the momentous conflict ; 

 the result of which was that not 

 only was her ascendancy over- 

 whelmingly confirmed in Italy, but 

 her sway was also established in 

 the Spanish peninsula, with its 

 mixed population of Celts and pre- 

 Celtic Iberians. 



Roman Power Expands 



During the next 170 years (200- 

 30 B.C. ) the dominion of the Roman 

 republic expanded. The conquests 

 of Julius Caesar in Gaul (58-50 B.C. ) 

 completed the subjection of all 

 Europe W. of the Rhine and S. of 

 the Danube, including the whole 

 Celtic or partly Celtic area, except 

 Britain, of which the part now 

 called England was absorbed 100 

 years later. But all along the 

 Rhine and the Upper Danube, the 

 Teutons were now pressing upon 

 the Roman frontier. The system 

 which had built up the might of 

 the Roman republic was not 

 adapted to the administration of 

 so heterogeneous an empire. Con- 

 centration of control was a neces- 

 sity. Caesar gathered into his own 

 hands the powers which enabled 

 his genius to shape an imperial 

 system under a single control. 



For 400 years and more, the 

 civilized world meant the Roman 

 empire, which covered much of Eu- 

 rope and parts of Asia and Africa. 

 On its borders there was incessant 

 war ; within it reigned the Roman 

 Peace, save when the death of an 

 emperor afforded a commander in 

 some distant province the chance 

 of snatching at the imperial purple. 



W. of the Adriatic and the 

 Rhine, the peoples of the continent 



became thoroughly Latinised in 

 language and political ideas,though 

 across the Channel Latinism was 

 little more than a superficial veneer 

 which touched not at all either 

 Celtic Ireland or the Celtic north 

 of the island of Britain. In the 

 Balkan peninsula, Hellenism held 

 its own against Latinism except in 

 the one trans-Danubian province 

 of the empire, Dacia, the modern 

 Rumania, planted with military 

 colonies from Italy. 



Towards the end of the 3rd cen- 

 tury A.D. Teutonic hordes were 

 surging against the Roman barrier, 

 pressing now southward as well as 

 westward upon the middle and 

 lower Danube. At the close of the 

 3rd century the imperial system 

 was reorganized by Diocletian, and 

 a few years later by Constantine, 

 who transferred the headquarters 

 of the empire in 324 from Rome to 

 Byzantium, which he renamed 

 Constantinople. At the same time, 

 after three centuries of repression 

 and persecution, Christianity be- 

 came the popular religion under 

 the imperial sanction, and the 

 ecclesiastical organization of the 

 Church was officially recognized. 

 One result of this was that Rome 

 acquired the religious primacy of 

 Christendom when her political 

 primacy was lost. 



Barbarian Irruptions 



With the beginning of the 6th 

 century, when the empire was 

 parted into E. and W. under the 

 two sons of Theodosius, the flood- 

 gates of the imperial frontiers 

 burst, and the Teutons swept over 

 the barrier. The Visigoths burst 

 into Italy under Alaric, and moved 

 W. into S. Gaul and Spain, whither 

 they had been preceded by Vandals 

 and Sueves. Behind the Goths 

 came a more terrible conqueror, 

 Attila and his Huns, not Teutons, 

 but Tartar hordes who for two 

 generations had been moving across 

 S. Russia from Central Asia. The 

 Goths in the W. had chosen to pro- 

 fess allegiance to the empire ; they 

 helped the imperial armies to turn 

 back the Huns at the battle of 

 Chalons, 451. 



The dispersal of the Huns made 

 way for fresh Teutonic irruptions. 

 The Ostrogoths, after overrunning 

 much of the Balkan peninsula, 

 turned W. and established a new 

 Gothic dominion in Italy under 

 Theodoric, who called himself a 

 lieutenant of the single emperor 

 now reigning at Constantinople. 

 Then at the beginning of the 6th 

 century the Teutonic Franks swept 

 over the Rhine and made them- 

 selves masters of the land which 

 still bears their name, though the 

 Franks themselves never com- 

 pletely Teutonised the country, 



