The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 AD . States. Gaul,Briton, Dacian, African, Greek, called themselves Romans. Theywere so, in life, thought, and feeling. The East kept its Greektongue and a pride in its earlier civilization (§ 475); but it,too, turned from the glories of Miltiades and Leonidas forwhat seemed the higher honor of the Roman name. And Eastand West alike used the Roman law and Roman political institu-tions. 1 Cf. § 587. Read the speech of tht Emperor (Davis Readings, II, No. 63),and note also the freedom and charactBr of interruptions by the Senator^. 504 THE ROMAN
The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 AD . States. Gaul,Briton, Dacian, African, Greek, called themselves Romans. Theywere so, in life, thought, and feeling. The East kept its Greektongue and a pride in its earlier civilization (§ 475); but it,too, turned from the glories of Miltiades and Leonidas forwhat seemed the higher honor of the Roman name. And Eastand West alike used the Roman law and Roman political institu-tions. 1 Cf. § 587. Read the speech of tht Emperor (Davis Readings, II, No. 63),and note also the freedom and charactBr of interruptions by the Senator^. 504 THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 31 [§ 617 The union of the Roman world was not, like that of previousempires, one of external force.^ It was in the inner life of thepeople. The provincials had no reason to feel a differencebetween themselves and the inhabitants of Italy. From theprovinces now came the men of letters who made Roman litera-ture glorious, and the grammarians who defined the Romanlanguage (§§ 626 ff.). They furnished nearly all the OF THE ROMAN EmpERORS AT TRIEB. In their cities arose schools of rhetoric that taught the use ofLatin even to youth born by the Tiber. The poet Claudian, an Egyptian Greek of the fourth century,expressed this noble unity in patriotic lines: — Rome, Rome alone has found the spell to charmThe tribes that bowed beneath her conquering arm; 1 Note that the physical conquests of Rome were chiefly made under theRepublic. The Empire was a defensive civilized state; and its wars, wi^hroir^ exceptions^ wer^ not/or conquest- §617) UNITY OF FEELING 505 Has given one name to the whole human race,And clasped and sheltered them in fond embrace, —Mother, not mistress; called her foe her son jAnd by soft ties made distant countries to her peaceful scepter all men owe,—That through the nations, wheresoeer we goStrangers, we find a fatherland. Our homeWe change at will; we count it sport to roamThrough distant Thule, or with s
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