JULIUS CAESAR. 149 



not Rome to them. A hundred localities of the same land 

 would have offered like advantages. The soul of Roman 

 greatness was not in the shelter of its hills, but in its 

 civil and military institutions, and in the unity of spirit and 

 vigour of action they engendered ; which kept the State 

 from being ever confederate with others, save when she 

 became their conqueror and chief. 



The growth of a single town, small and obscure in its 

 origin, into the empire of the then known world, is a pro- 

 digious phenomenon. We need thus to bring together the 

 two extremes, before we can fully comprehend how greatly 

 the fact surpasses any kindred event in the history of nations. 

 And even in the decline and fall of this vast fabric of power 

 we have fresh cause for wonder at the slender foundation of 

 an edifice, stable enough to resist so many centuries of decay, 

 and leaving such ample vestiges to later ages. Fortuitous 

 causes are out of the question; nor is any theory of race 

 or temperament more admissible. Whether we consider the 

 founders as a colony, or as a band of lawless adventurers, 

 which Mr. Merivale seems to suppose, equally certain is it 

 that they were of the same Latin stock as other neighbour- 

 ing tribes ; modified, it may be, by intermixture, or other 

 incidents to which such small communities are liable. 

 Throwing aside what is poetic and legendary in the history 

 of Rome, we cannot look elsewhere than to moral causes for 

 its grandeur of growth. Partially modelled under the rule 

 of the kings ; more largely evolved in the change to re- 

 publican government; farther extended and matured by 

 those internal struggles of classes which more than once 

 threatened the existence of the State the institutions of 

 Rome survived in show when their virtue was extinct, and 

 lent a specious shelter even to those usurpations which 

 converted a republic into an empire. The outward forms 

 of the Roman Senate were continued as matter of policy. 



