s of years of internal trouble, barbaric quarrels, and fresh
arrivals from the north, Greece began to wear an aspect of civilisation.
Many of the Greeks passed to Asia Minor, as they increased, and, freed
from the despotism of tradition, in living contact with the luxury and
culture of Persia, which had advanced as far as Europe, they evolved the
fine civilisation of the Greek colonies, and reacted on the motherland.
Finally, there came the heroic struggle against the Persian invaders,
and from the ashes of their early civilisation arose the marble city
which will never die in the memory of Europe.

The Romans had meantime been advancing. We may neglect the older Italian
culture, as it had far less to do with the making of Italy and Europe
than the influence of the east. By about 500 B.C. Rome was a small
kingdom with a primitive civilisation, busy in subduing the neighbouring
tribes who threatened its security, and unconsciously gathering the
seeds of culture which some of them contained. By about 300 B.C. the
vigour of the Romans had united all the tribes of Italy in a powerful
republic, and wealth began to accumulate at Rome. Not far to the east
was the glittering civilisation of Greece; to the south was Carthage, a
busy centre of commerce, navigation, and art; and from the Mediterranean
came processions of ships bringing stimulating fragments and stories
of the hoary culture of the east. Within another two hundred years Rome
annihilated Carthage, paralysed and overran Greece, and sent its legions
over the Asiatic provinces of the older empires. By the beginning of
the Christian Era all that remained of the culture of the old world was
gathered in Rome. All the philosophies of Greece, all the religions
of Persia and Judea and Egypt, all the luxuries and vices of the east,
found a home in it. Every stream of culture that had started from the
later and higher Neolithic age had ended in Rome.

And in the meantime Rome had begun to disseminate its heritage over
Europe. Its legions poured over Spain and Gaul and Germany and Britain.
Its administrators and judges and teachers followed the eagles, and set
up schools and law-courts and theatres and baths and temples. It flung
broad roads to the north of Britain and the banks of the Rhine and
Danube. Under the shelter of the "Roman Peace" the peoples of Europe
could spare men from the plough and the sword for the cultivation of art
and letters. The civilisations of Britain, F