The Old Roman World | Page 2

of all Classes--Universal Despair and Ruin--The Greatness of the
Catastrophe--Reflections on the Fall of Rome

CHAPTER XII.
THE REASONS WHY THE CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCES OF
PAGAN CIVILIZATION DID NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE
ROMAN WORLD.
Necessary Corruption of all Institutions under Paganism--Glory
succeeded by Shame--The Army a worn-out Mechanism--The low
Aims of Government-- Difficulties of the Emperors--Laws perverted or
unenforced--The Degeneracy of Art--The Frivolity of Literature--The
imperfect Triumph of Philosophy--Nothing Conservative in human
Creations--Necessity of Aid from foreign and Divine Sources


CHAPTER XIII.
WHY CHRISTIANITY DID NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE.
The Victories of Christianity came too late--Small Number of Converts
when Christianity was a renovating Power--Their comparative
Unimportance in a political and social View for three Centuries--The
Church constructs a Polity for Itself rather than seeks to change
established Institutions--Rapid Corruption of Christianity when
established, and Adoption of Pagan Ideas and Influences--No
Renovation of worn-out Races-- No Material on which Christianity
could work--Not the Mission of the Church to save Empires, but the
Race--A diseased Body must die


CHAPTER XIV.

THE LEGACY OF THE EARLY CHURCH TO FUTURE
GENERATIONS.
The great Ideas which the Fathers propounded--The Principle of Self-
sacrifice, seen especially in early Martyrdoms--The Idea of
Benevolence in connection with public and private
Charities--Importance of public Preaching--Pulpit Oratory--The
Elaboration of Christian Doctrine--Its Connection with
Philosophy--Church Psalmody--The Principle of Christian Equality--Its
Effects on Slavery and the Elevation of the People--The Social Equality
of the Sexes--Superiority in the condition of the modern over the
ancient Woman--The Idea of Popular Education--The Unity of the
Church

INTRODUCTION.
I propose to describe the Greatness and the Misery of the old Roman
world; nor is there any thing in history more suggestive and instructive.
A little city, founded by robbers on the banks of the Tiber, rises
gradually into importance, although the great cities of the East are
scarcely conscious of its existence. Its early struggles simply arrest the
attention, and excite the jealousy, of the neighboring nations. The
citizens of this little state are warriors, and, either for defense or glory,
they subdue one after another the cities of Latium and Etruria, then the
whole of Italy, and finally the old monarchies and empires of the world.
In two hundred and fifty years the citizens have become nobles, and a
great aristocracy is founded, which lasts eight hundred years. Their
aggressive policy and unbounded ambition involve the whole world in
war, which does not cease until all the nations known to the Greeks
acknowledge their sway. Everywhere Roman laws, language, and
institutions spread. A vast empire arises, larger than the Assyrian and
the Macedonian combined,--a universal empire,--a great wonder and
mystery, having all the grandeur of a providential event. It becomes too
great to be governed by an oligarchy of nobles. Civil wars create an
imperator, who, uniting in himself all the great offices of state, and
sustained by the conquering legions, rules from East to West and from
North to South, with absolute and undivided sovereignty. The Caesars

reach the summit of human greatness and power, and the city of
Romulus becomes the haughty mistress of the world. The emperor is
worshiped as a deity, and the proud metropolis calls herself eternal. An
empire is established by force of arms and by a uniform policy, such as
this world has not seen before or since.
Early Roman history is chiefly the detail of successful wars, aggressive
and uncompromising, in which we see a fierce and selfish patriotism,
an indomitable will, a hard unpitying temper, great practical sagacity,
patience, and perseverance, superiority to adverse fortune, faith in
national destinies, heroic sentiments, and grand ambition. We see a
nation of citizen soldiers, an iron race of conquerors, bent on conquest,
on glory, on self-exaltation, attaching but little value to the individual
man, but exalting the integrity and unity of the state. We see no fitful
policy, no abandonment to the enjoyment of the fruits of victory, no
rest, no repose, no love of art or literature, but an unbounded passion
for domination. The Romans toiled, and suffered, and died,--never
wearied, never discouraged, never satisfied, until their mission was
accomplished and the world lay bleeding and prostrate at their feet.
In the latter days of the Republic, the Roman citizen, originally
contented with a few acres in the plains and valleys through which the
Tiber flowed, becomes a great landed proprietor, owning extensive
estates in the conquered territories, an aristocrat, a knight, a senator, a
noble, while his dependents disdained to labor and were fed at the
public expense. The state could afford to give them corn, oil, and wine,
for it was the owner of Egypt, of Greece, of Asia Minor, of Syria, of
Spain, of Gaul, of Africa,--a belt of territory around the Mediterranean
Sea one thousand miles