History of Rome, and of the Roman people, from its origin to the invasion of the barbarians . ndividual. There are nations of which we rightly take no account, andperiods which might have been omitted from history and humanitywould have lost nothing thereby. But suppose for a moment thatthe Roman Empire had not existed: what a void in the world IOutside its frontiers the Barbaric world is torn by sterile convul-sions, or the peoples vegetate in a miserable existence. In the 1 Among the causes of legitimate hindrance from being at a certain place at a fixed Severus admitted the i
History of Rome, and of the Roman people, from its origin to the invasion of the barbarians . ndividual. There are nations of which we rightly take no account, andperiods which might have been omitted from history and humanitywould have lost nothing thereby. But suppose for a moment thatthe Roman Empire had not existed: what a void in the world IOutside its frontiers the Barbaric world is torn by sterile convul-sions, or the peoples vegetate in a miserable existence. In the 1 Among the causes of legitimate hindrance from being at a certain place at a fixed Severus admitted the incursus latronum (Digest, xxvii. i, 13, sect. 7). 182 THE EMPIRE AND ROMAN SOCIETY. Roman provinces, on the contrary, there are just laws and order,and what a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius was near calling allnecessary liberties; there are labor and property, and a securitywhich, although still insufficient, was such as the world had neveryet known; and, lastly, there was no envy or hate between thedifferent classes, — all things which singularly increased the happi-ness of RUINS OF THE GREAT AQUEDUCT OF MERIDA (EMERITA AUGUSTA).1 If with the picture which we have just sketched be contrastedthat which represented the state of the provinces after the battleof Actimn, we shall recognize the extent of the progress actuallymade. Better still, let us consider the ruins left by these peoples;let us go, for example, to the banks of the Guadiana, and in imag-ination reconstruct the ancient Emerita Augusta, colonized withveterans by Augustus. Observe its wall, fifteen miles in length,its theatre, its naurnachia, its temples to Mars and Diana, its main 1 Delaborile. Voyage en Espagne.
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