ROMAN TRAINING UNEQUAL TO IMPERIAL PROBLEMS. 229 



but the continuation of the discipline exercised by 

 the father of each family. For absolute as was the 

 devotion which the State required of its citizens in 

 military matters, it yet did not crush the individual, 

 because the State never thought of interfering with 

 the relations of a Roman to his family and his 

 household. Hence the ambassadors of Pyrrhus 

 might well report that the Roman Senators were 

 300 kings ; and we may add a truth no less incom- 

 prehensible to Greek ears, that not one of them 

 would have been capable of playing the tyrant. 

 The Roman training produced a succession of 

 " golden mediocrities," who carried out their task 

 with unhesitating devotion and unyielding per- 

 tinacity. But it was too narrow to cope with the 

 problems which arose out of the growth of the city 

 by the Tiber into a world-wide empire, too narrow 

 to reconcile the spirit of old Roman morality with 

 ^the claims of Hellenic culture. It could neither pro- 

 luce a man who could solve the political problem 

 >f combining empire with freedom, nor one to solve 

 [he intellectual problem of combining reason with 

 ^irtue. And so the Romans lost first their virtue 

 md then their freedom, and in the end their empire. 

 Thus we may learn from the history of Greece 

 md Egypt how necessary it is to keep the proper 

 )alance between the development of society and of 

 :he individual ; from that of Rome, how necessary 

 It is to advance, if one desires to avoid failure due 

 lot to any intrinsic deterioration, but to inability to 

 :ope with new and uncalculated conditions. It is 

 From excess of conservatism and self-satisfaction, 

 from unwillingness to adopt new methods for 

 iealing with new difficulties, and not from any 

 ineluctable law of natural mortality, that civiliz- 



