622 THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 



of positive knowledge bear no kind of comparison to that of the Ptole- 

 mies just mentioned; indeed, their works have reference chiefly to military 

 purposes and material aggrandizement. In this manner we must look 

 upon the surveys and itineraries which they caused to be made of vari- 

 ous parts of the empire. Nevertheless, through their influence the idea 

 of civilization was gradually made to find its way through Central and 

 Northern Europe. 



The function of Rome in our history is very distinct. From small 

 Centralizing beginnings she steadily pursued the same progress. The 

 pote^ 11 ^ c 011 *! 1168 * an ^ absorption of town after town, which was the 

 Home. history of her earlier times, was carried out in the annexation 



of nations in her day of strength. From the moment that she gained 

 the control of the Mediterranean Sea, which was the grand epoch of her 

 life, she inexorably forced all the conterminous nations to acknowledge 

 Italian centralization. It is no metaphorical expression that she became 

 their centre of gravity. No circumstance could occur to her which did 

 not instantly influence them all. As far more than an equivalent for 

 subjugation and loss of independence, she made them into a common 

 race, harmonizing their actions, and giving them common ideas. The 

 Roman empire was the organizing agent of the white man. 



The acts of man, though they may have the aspect of free-will as re- 

 gards himself, are automatic as regards the race. He is employed in 

 achieving a result of which he is utterly ignorant ; he is concerned in a 

 work of the effects of which he is unconscious. He is like a bee, which 

 doubtless experiences a certain pleasure in flying from flower to flower, 

 the gratification of an obscure desire in constructing cell after cell, its 

 individual delight ministering to a public good of the nature of which it 

 is wholly unconscious. 



In such a manner we may look upon the career of the Roman with 

 satisfaction. He was pursuing a life of evil deeds, and accumulating in 

 his great and dissipated capital the spoils of wasted provinces, gratifying 

 his wanton luxuries by a systematic resort to war, that most awful of 

 the curses that afflict our race. It was the temporary lust of individual 

 interest that he was pursuing. Providence was bringing out of it a uni- 

 versal good. 



If Rome was cruel in her national acts, she was majestic in her policy. 

 The fall of Eu ^ e decimated nations that she might bind them into one 

 ropean pagan- family. With remorseless vigor she extinguished every 

 trace of independent action, and with a contradictory but 

 noble liberality, domesticated the worship of every conquered people 

 round the Capitol. There was no god whose image she could not show, 

 no faith of which she was not the patroness. It may serve as an exam- 

 ple of the manner in which her policy led to definite results of which she 



