an League were attempts to federalize Greece. They were
successful only in part.

{250}

CHAPTER XV

ROMAN CIVILIZATION

_The Romans Differed in Nature from the Greeks_.--Instead of being of a
philosophic, speculative nature, the Romans were a practical, even a
stoical, people of great achievement. They turned their ideas always
toward the concrete, and when they desired to use the abstract they
borrowed the principles and theories established by other nations.
They were poor theorizers, both in philosophy and in religion, but were
intensely interested in that which they could turn to immediate and
practical benefit. They were great borrowers of the products of other
people's imagination. In the very early period they borrowed the gods
of the Greeks and somewhat of their forms of religion!

Later they borrowed forms of art from other nations and developed them
to suit their own, and, still later, they used the literary language of
the Greeks to enrich their own. This method of borrowing the best
products of others and putting them to practical service led to immense
consequences in the development of civilization. The Romans lacked not
in originality, for practical application leads to original creation,
but their best efforts in civilization were wrought out from this
practical standpoint. Thus, in the improvement of agriculture, in the
perfection of the art of war, in the development of law and of
government, their work was masterly in the extreme; and to this extent
it was worked out rather than thought out. Indeed, their whole
civilization was evolved from the practical standpoint.

_The Social Structure of Early Rome and That of Early Greece_.--Rome
started, like Greece, with the early patriarchal kings, who ruled over
the expanded family, but with this difference, that these kings, from
the earliest historical records, were {251} elected by the people.
Nevertheless there is no evidence that the democratic spirit was
greater in early Rome than in early Greece, except in form. In the
early period all Italy was filled with tribes, mostly of Aryan descent,
and in the regal period the small territory of Latium was filled with
independent city communities; but all these cities were federated on a
religious basis and met at Alba Longa as a centre, where they conducted
their worship and duly instituted certain regulations concerning the
government of all. Later, after the decline of Alba Longa, the