e bulk of the people acquired, with that title,
the benefit of the Roman laws, particularly in the interesting articles
of marriage, testaments, and inheritances; and the road of fortune was
open to those whose pretensions were seconded by favor or merit.
The grandsons of the Gauls, who had besieged Julius Caesar in Alcsia,
commanded legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate
of Rome. Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity of the
state, was intimately connected with its safety and greatness.

So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over national
manners, that it was their most serious care to extend, with the
progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue. The ancient
dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the Venetian, sunk into
oblivion; but in the provinces, the east was less docile than the west
to the voice of its victorious preceptors. This obvious difference
marked the two portions of the empire with a distinction of colors,
which, though it was in some degree concealed during the meridian
splendor of prosperity, became gradually more visible, as the shades
of night descended upon the Roman world. The western countries
were civilized by the same hands which subdued them. As soon as the
barbarians were reconciled to obedience, their minds were open to any
new impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil
and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption, was so
universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul Britain, and Pannonia, that
the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms were preserved only in
the mountains, or among the peasants. Education and study insensibly
inspired the natives of those countries with the sentiments of Romans;
and Italy gave fashions, as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They
solicited with more ardor, and obtained with more facility, the freedom
and honors of the state; supported the national dignity in letters and
in arms; and at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an emperor
whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their countryman. The
situation of the Greeks was very different from that of the barbarians.
The former had been long since civilized and corrupted. They had too
much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to adopt
any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after they
had lost the virtues, of their ancestors, they affected to des