It is scarcely necessary to consider the matter more in detail, but as they illustrate the history of the Roman Empire in little, it is useful to notice two points. If Latium had advantages over the rest of Italy, Rome had advantages over Latium. Placed on the Tiber, at a position capable of defence though always exposed to attack, her inhabitants would naturally be continually prepared for defence. They might suffer, but however much they might suffer from roving bands of invaders the probability was that they would suffer less than those towns to the south. Thus relatively they would become stronger than their neighbours, and Rome would take the lead in Latium. Also, though the early history is obscure and seems confused, the obscurity and confusion are just what we might expect from the conditions. Moreover, almost the only fact that can be laid hold of is that the origin of the city was due to the fact that on some slight eminences rising out of a plain men of different tribes settled. These tribes learned, in the face of common dangers, to drop internal differences. They learned, moreover, that the best defence lay in themselves. The inhabitants of Rome thus learned what the inhabitants of Athens did not learn, that each man was not independent, but that account must be taken by each of the opinions and character of the rest. No single man may have clearly understood this, but, as a whole, they acted on the principle because they found by experience that it was best to do so.
When the city or town of Rome began to extend her influence over surrounding communities, she was, on the one hand, more able to bring them to subjection, and, on the other, less inclined to domineer over them unnecessarily. Rome was definitely the one town in central Italy south of the Tiber, and in this she was more favourably situated than was Athens. Further, the peoples by whom she was surrounded were almost as civilized as were her own inhabitants. They were for this reason more difficult to subdue than were the inferior folk with whom the Carthaginians came into contact, but when they were subdued they were treated more as equals. Cruel these early Romans may appear in our eyes, but they were probably less cruel than other races. The cruelty of which they were guilty was not, on the whole, indulged in for the sake of giving pain to others. It was a cruelty the results of which had been calculated, and which had been decided on in the interests of good government—that is, to save energy in the long run. The Roman Government was thus more stable, not only than that of Grecian cities, but also than that of Carthage.
We have now seen how the larger facts, as well as the local conditions, tended to induce in Rome the growth of a civilization of a higher order than had hitherto appeared on the earth, though the local con ditions would have had no effect had not the larger facts existed. With the increasing expansion of Roman
power another set of controls was increasingly important. The great variety of relief and circumstance to be found in Italy came to affect the history. We have seen how Italy differs from that other peninsula, Greece. It may also be contrasted with those other peninsulas, Iberia and Denmark. Spain is predominantly high, Denmark is predominantly low; whereas in Italy high lands and lowlands are present in almost equal propor tions. There were in Italy peoples with the different outlook on life resulting from the different conditions due to land and sea. There were the southern coasts in touch with the sea, and settled to such an extent by the Greeks as to deserve the name of " Greater Greece." The inhabitants of these cities were traders, and wealth abounded. The northern lands had a civilization in which the sea had less share, and were exposed to in fluences which depended not at all on the sea. But in addition to this there were herdsmen and shepherd communities on the uplands and mountains, and agri cultural folk on the lowlands, and between these there were again differences. To the north of Rome were the Umbrian and Etruscan peoples; to the south the cities of Tarentum and Thurii ; but even closer to the plains of the lower Tiber were the Sabine hills and the high-lying lands of Samnium. The problem of the Roman state, as it expanded, was thus of the same nature as the problem of the city of Rome, and because the lessons of government had been learned in the city, the inhabitants of the state were able to evolve a system of government whereby the most was made of the energies of all the varied communities which came to recognize Rome as supreme.
The new ideas of government, induced by the geo graphical conditions, had their effect on the history in three ways.
The Assyrian Empire was based on the idea of con quering countries for the sake of the tribute that could be wrung from them. At any rate in earlier times, when the traditions of government were forming, this was not the case in Rome. There the idea was to Romanize the different units, to make them one, while recognizing that there were differences. The process was somewhat slow at first, but it was thorough, for there resulted a solid nucleus in central Italy altogether Roman in feeling. The city gave its name to the governing state because of this fact. The internal troubles of the Roman state were never due to revolts against Rome, but to attempts to obtain fuller advan tages of the government. Rome was something very different from Carthage or Assyria.