Lectures and Essays | Page 3

have profoundly affected and still affect the course
of history? The case is still stronger if we take races more remote from
each other, such as the English and the Hindoo. But the further we
inquire, the more reason there appears to be for believing that
peculiarities of race are themselves originally formed by the influence
of external circumstances on the primitive tribe; that, however marked
and ingrained they may be, they are not congenital and perhaps not
indelible. Englishmen and Frenchmen are closely assimilated by
education; and the weaknesses of character supposed to be inherent in
the Irish gradually disappear under the more benign influences of the
New World. Thus, by ascribing the achievements of the Romans to the
special qualities of their race, we should not be solving the problem,
but only stating it again in other terms.
But besides this, the wolf theory halts in a still more evident manner.
The foster-children of the she-wolf, let them have never so much of
their foster-mother's milk in them, do not do what the Romans did, and
they do precisely what the Romans did not. They kill, ravage, plunder--
perhaps they conquer and even for a time retain their conquests--but
they do not found highly organized empires, they do not civilize, much
less do they give birth to law. The brutal and desolating domination of
the Turk, which after being long artificially upheld by diplomacy, is at
last falling into final ruin, is the type of an empire founded by the
foster-children of the she-wolf. Plunder, in the animal lust of which
alone it originated, remains its law, and its only notion of imperial
administration is a coarse division, imposed by the extent of its territory,
into satrapies, which, as the central dynasty, enervated by sensuality,
loses its force, revolt, and break up the empire. Even the Macedonian,
pupil of Aristotle though he was, did not create an empire at all
comparable to that created by the Romans. He overran an immense
extent of territory, and scattered over a portion of it the seed of an
inferior species of Hellenic civilization, but he did not organize it
politically, much less did he give it, and through it the world, a code of
law. It at once fell apart into a number of separate kingdoms, the
despotic rulers of which were Sultans with a tinge of Hellenism, and

which went for nothing in the political development of mankind.
What if the very opposite theory to that of the she-wolf and her foster-
children should be true? What if the Romans should have owed their
peculiar and unparalleled success to their having been at first not more
warlike, but less warlike than their neighbours? It may seem a paradox,
but we suspect in their imperial ascendency is seen one of the earliest
and not least important steps in that gradual triumph of intellect over
force, even in war, which has been an essential part of the progress of
civilization. The happy day may come when Science in the form of a
benign old gentleman with a bald head and spectacles on nose, holding
some beneficent compound in his hand, will confront a standing army
and the standing army will cease to exist. That will be the final victory
of intellect. But in the meantime, our acknowledgments are due to the
primitive inventors of military organization and military discipline.
They shivered Goliath's spear. A mass of comparatively unwarlike
burghers, unorganized and undisciplined, though they may be the hope
of civilization from their mental and industrial qualities, have as little
of collective as they have of individual strength in war; they only get in
each other's way, and fall singly victims to the prowess of a gigantic
barbarian. He who first thought of combining their force by
organization, so as to make their numbers tell, and who taught them to
obey officers, to form regularly for action, and to execute united
movements at the word of command, was, perhaps, as great a
benefactor of the species as he who grew the first corn, or built the first
canoe.
What is the special character of the Roman legends, so far as they relate
to war? Their special character is, that they are legends not of personal
prowess but of discipline. Rome has no Achilles. The great national
heroes, Camillus, Cincinnatus, Papirius, Cursor, Fabius Maximus,
Manlius are not prodigies of personal strength and valour, but
commanders and disciplinarians. The most striking incidents are
incidents of discipline. The most striking incident of all is the execution
by a commander of his own son for having gained a victory against
orders. "_Disciplinam militarem_," Manlius is made to say, "_qua stetit
ad hanc diem Romana res._" Discipline was the great secret of Roman
ascendency in war. It is the