Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATION. Con-In conclusion two questions need some answer: --c uswn. What effects had this system of intercourse on government, commerce, and social life? and Why did it fail to last? To give a complete answer would be to write a history of the Roman Empire or rather of European civilization to the present day. Yet each student may work out some fragment of the truth. From the point of view of government, we may say that the Roman system of communication by sea, and still more by land, drew tight the bonds of empire. The Roman roads were the symbol of the mistress city to the provincials who might never visit her, and perchance could not even speak her tongue. The Romans had grasped one of the great secrets of government, that the mass of men are swayed by their imagination rather than by their reason; the roads from north and south, east and west, all converging at Rome, pointed more eloquently than official proclamation or sophists' harangue to the unity of the Empire. Yet this unity was far from perfect; that East and West had little really in common is shown by the foundation of Constantinople; and even in the first century the imperial policy had to battle with the exclusive spirit of the republicans, who regarded Rome still as a city-state, with dependencies indeed as Athens before her, but with dependencies that must never rise to be anything more. Of this spirit Juvenal and Tacitus may serve as types; they cared little for the new world that was growing up around them. Court intrigue and city vice seemed to them better worth describing than the government or the social life of the provinces. Even when Tacitus describes the German tribes he has his thoughts fixed on the Romans with whom they so strongly..
