loped system of travelling. 'It is not too much to say that
travelling was more highly developed and the dividing power of distance
was weaker under the Empire than at any time before or since until we
come down to the present century.' This is what gives such a modern
and cosmopolitan flavour to the lives of men of the Empire as unlike
one another in other respects as Strabo and Jerome. We find the
evidence of such a system of inter-communication also, and not less
impressively, in the multiplied proofs afforded to us that every
movement of thought in the Empire must needs pass to Rome and establish
itself there. The rapid arrival of all oriental tendencies or beliefs
at Rome was, of course, what from the point of view of conservative
Romans meant the destruction of all that they valued in character and
ideals. 'The Orontes had poured itself into the Tiber.' But it was
none the less a fact of the utmost significance for the world's
progress. (3) The unity of the Empire depended largely on the use
which was made of Greek civilization and Greek language. The Empire
{24} may be rightly described, if we are considering its eastern half,
as Greek no less than Roman from the first. Everywhere it was the
Greek language which was the instrument of Roman government, and Greek
civilization, tempered by somewhat barbarous Roman 'games,' which was
put into competition with local customs whether social or
religious[16]. (4) Lastly, to a very real extent the Empire was aiming
at the establishment of a universal religion. Independent local gods
and local cults suited well enough a number of independent little
tribes and kingdoms, but it was felt instinctively that the one empire
involved also one religion, and with more or less of deliberate
intention the one religion was provided in the worship of the emperor,
or, perhaps we should say, of the Empire.

This worship of the emperor has been among us a very byword for what is
monstrous and unintelligible. It bewilders us when we hear of
something like it in our own Indian empire. And yet a little
imagination ought to show us that where a pure monotheism has not
taught men the moral purity and personal character of God--where
religion is either pantheism, the deification of the one life, or
idolatry, the deification {25} of separate forms of life--the worship
of the imperial authority is intelligible enough. Here was a vast
power, universal in its range, mostly beneficent,