reek, art and literature were
inextricably involved in daily life and thought; to the Roman, as to us,
they were a separate unit in a many-sided civilisation. Undoubtedly this
circumstance proves the inferiority of the Roman culture to the Greek;
but it is an inferiority shared by our own culture, and therefore a bond
of sympathy.

The race whose genius gave rise to the glories of Rome is, unhappily,
not now in existence. Centuries of devastating wars, and foreign
immigration into Italy, left but few real Latins after the early
Imperial aera. The original Romans were a blend of closely related
dolichocephalic Mediterranean tribes, whose racial affinities with the
Greeks could not have been very remote, plus a slight Etruscan element
of doubtful classification. The latter stock is an object of much
mystery to ethnologists, being at present described by most authorities
as of the brachycephalic Alpine variety. Many Roman customs and habits
of thought are traceable to this problematical people.

It is a singular circumstance, that classic Latin literature is, save in
the case of satire, almost wholly unrelated to the crude effusions of
the primitive Latins; being borrowed as to form and subject from the
Greeks, at a comparatively late date in Rome's political history. That
this borrowing assisted greatly in Latin cultural advancement, none may
deny; but it is also true that the new Hellenised literature exerted a
malign influence on the nation's ancient austerity, introducing lax
Grecian notions which contributed to moral and material decadence. The
counter-currents, however, were strong; and the virile Roman spirit
shone nobly through the Athenian dress in almost every instance,
imparting to the literature a distinctively national cast, and
displaying the peculiar characteristics of the Italian mind. On the
whole, Roman life moulded Roman literature more than the literature
moulded the life.

The earliest writings of the Latins are, save for a fragment or two,
lost to posterity; though a few of their qualities are known. They were
for the most part crude ballads in an odd "Saturnian" metre copied from
the Etruscans, primitive religious chants and dirges, rough medleys of
comic verse forming the prototype of satire, and awkward "Fescennine"
dialogues or dramatic farces enacted by the lively peasantry. All
doubtless reflected the simple, happy and virtuous, if stern, life of
the home-loving agricultural race which was de