22 



But even the Roman peace, bought as it was at 

 the cost of learning and the arts, was but a 

 mechanical peace ; in the wilder, more turbulent 

 and more heterogeneous peoples of the later Empire 

 the bodies but not the wills of men were in subju- 

 gation. The great system of Roman Law, which 

 Numa, the Moses of Rome, had invested with 

 supernatural awe, had become but an external 

 rule ; even in Rome herself, poorer in people, 

 poorer in commerce, poorer than ever in ideas, 

 the sanction of patriotism was failing, and her 

 citizens were held together for the most part by 

 their baser and more dangerous passions 1 . For 

 Eastern Europe the University of Constantinople 

 established a compact and uniform system of 

 thought, subtle prolix and acquisitive rather than 

 original or profound ; but in the West, under the 

 Frank and later Northern devastations, the very 

 traditions of learning and obedience were broken 

 up ; schools were closed, and even the art of 

 writing was almost lost. Then it was that the 

 cohesion and development of Western Europe 



1 "Nee ullum satis validum imperium erat coercendis 

 seditionibus populi, flagitia hominuin ut caeremonias deum 

 protegentis." Tac. Ann. in. 60. 



