(ii) But because Rome was still the centre of govern ment, because the traditions of the people of the city weighed heavily in the balance, the local conditions and the historical momentum still had great effect.
(a) The sea was not unfamiliar to the people of Rome, as it had been to the Persian monarchs. It washes the shores within but a few miles of the city, and not only were the cities to the southward, which Rome had more lately made her own, actually dependent on the sea, but Roman tradition points to a much earlier control over cities on the coast of Latium. Without this early and constant familiarity with the sea it is very doubtful whether the existence of the peninsulas and islands on the south would have so quickly reacted in the way it did.
(b) On the other hand, Italy was no Greece; Rome was the centre which the rest of Italy acknowledged as supreme. Rome had not even the position of Mace donia. The whole rule was not the work of one or two men only ; many of the citizens might be called on to lead armies or rule the state : naturally, not all of these were equal to the task, but the fact remains that in a crisis a man able for the emergency generally appeared. For similar reasons even the-fighting machine itself was proportionately more efficient than the Mace donian phalanx, and the government of subject states was the more stable. This condition of things was largely due to historical momentum, to the tendency of existing conditions to continue to exist.
(c) The ideals which the citizens of Rome had ever before them in their early days also affected their later history. Rome was not a Carthage. It was not trade that was desired, but the Pax Romana and land on which to grow things to support life. This was the result of geographical conditions, and it affected the history of the greatly expanded state.
These factors have all to be remembered. Rome was successively embroiled with Carthage and Greece, because of their connections with the peninsulas and islands of the south. Her armies were superior to those of Macedonia and Carthage ; her fleets even tually proved stronger than any brought against her. By 146 B.C. Carthage was destroyed, and Greece was forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. When Greece and Carthage ceased to be independent sea powers, there was no one to dispute the sovereignty of the seas, and the lands bordering the Mediterranean speedily fell to the power that held the command of the sea, but yet the Romans made little attempt to become traders. The island of Rhodes, between Phce nician and Greek, for long was the chief, if not the only, seat of a mercantile community, and Rome did not attempt to crush these merchants ; they were not rivals. In the absence of an effective rule of the sea, anarchy appeared. At first this was little felt ; mili tary expeditions were undertaken most easily by sea, because the pirates that had sprung up would not attack them. It was only when the Romans began to draw their supplies from lands other than their own that they found it necessary to clear the seas of these sea-robbers, who found an excellent base in the islands of the east. That piracy had been allowed to increase
from lack of inclination to deal with it, not from lack of sea-power, is seen in the fact that in the short space of forty days Pompey drove the pirates from the seas. Rome could dominate the sea when she chose. It is evident that she was a sea-power on a much greater scale than was either Greece or Carthage. Henceforward for many centuries the Mediterranean is entirely Roman.
Battles, and famous battles they were, were fought on it, but they were between rival candidates for the supremacy of the state, not between Rome and external foes.
Now while it is true that many of the later Roman dominions were reached, or reached morn easily, by means of the sea, this was not so in all cases. Further, these dominions overseas were not mere strips of coast, but tracts of country which required to be ruled and kept in touch with the central government. Thus, though the sea was a controlling factor in Roman history, the land was equally so.
We must now consider another great geographical con trol. Besides the great contrast between sea and land there is another great contrast, namely, that between high ground and low ground. Notice that it is not the con trast between hills and valleys, but between high ground and low ground. There are districts where the level of the land is but little above that of the sea, and dis tricts raised half a mile, a mile, or even two miles high. Even this latter height is negligible on a horizontal scale, but it is an enormous vertical distance because of the fact that at a great height there are entirely differ ent conditions of living. There is less air, there is less heat and moisture. Unchangeably the conditions of life on a low district must remain different from the con ditions of life on highlands. It affects even the bodies of men; negroes cannot live long at heights of three quarters of a mile, owing probably to the difference in amount of air; but this is only one aspect of the case. The conditions under which vegetation is produced are different, and generally the conditions under which energy may be saved are different. Hence, races who live on highlands will, must, have different occupations, different habits, different food, different ideals, different ways of thinking from the lowland races. Two lowland peoples on either side of a highland area are divided not by mountains only, but by peoples entirely different from them in almost every respect, and each of the three forms a separate unit. The Alps, for example, rise at their highest to a height of three miles, and average a mile, but they are 120 miles across. That is to say, the important fact is not so much that the Alps are a mountain range as that they are a highland area. The modern Switzerland, the Tyrol and Savoy, are highland states on the Alps, whose peoples are and have always been different from the peoples on either side.