190 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



perhaps 30 per cent faster than during the last hundred years. 

 The difference in rainfall, however, and still more in the variability 

 of the temperature was probably much greater. While we cannot 

 speak positively, it seems probable that in those days the varia- 

 bility at Rome may have been twice as great as at present, and 

 the stimulating quality of the air correspondingly important. 

 Today Rome lies near the border between the highly stimulating 

 climate of northern Italy and the relatively enervating climate of 

 the extreme south. From 450 to 250 B. C. the climate was prob- 

 ably decidedly more stimulating than in any part of Italy today. 

 In fact, it is open to question whether there is today in any part 

 of the world a climate better than that which Rome then enjoyed. 

 July and August were doubtless too hot, for they now average 

 77° and 76°F respectively, and were then probably only three 

 or four degrees cooler. Yet the summers were not so hot as 

 those of Philadelphia, and were probably blessed more frequently 

 with cool waves. The winters were much better than those of 

 Philadelphia, for they must have had greater variability, while 

 the temperature from December to January did not fall so low, 

 and probably averaged a little above 40°F. 



In such a climate, provided the people had a good racial inherit- 

 ance to begin with, we should expect a most healthy, vigorous, and 

 strong-willed population. Among them there would presumably 

 prevail conditions such as those which accompany our periods 

 of prosperity. If anything, however, we should expect greater 

 powers of self-control because the average health ought to have 

 been better than with us. Not that the deathrate w^as anywhere 

 so low as with us, for there was no real medical science, but when 

 people were well they presumably had that superabounding health 

 which makes them work with a will, and enables them to resist 

 temptation. What do we actually find? For fear that I may 

 overstate the case, let me quote various passages from Ferrero's 

 account of this period. The Romans were then so unlike the 

 people of more enervating climates — this is my phrase, not Fer- 



