ROMAN CIVILIZATION. inferior to the Greeks in alertness of mind and in versatility, but superior in poise and in judgment, the Romans slowly' de veloped a civilization of a higher type in matters of government and law. They first devised a work ing combination of power and freedom. In the third century n.c. Rome had made herself mistress of Italy; and when, in the struggle with Carthago (q.v.), she added sea-power to her land-power. she was able to extend her authority over the entire basin of the Mediterranean. After the conquest of Greece (A.n. 146) the Greek culture became dominant at Rome in art, letters, and philosophy; and the civilization which the Ro man Empire carried into lands heretofore barba rous was a Greco-Roman civilization. In the eastern portion of the Empire, the direct influence of Greece was naturally greater; in the western portion, that of Rome. In western and central Europe the Greek culture was introduced and perpetuated, until the fourteenth century. mainly through the Latin imitations of Greek forms and Latin popularizations of Greek thought. The
third great force that has shaped the modern world, Christianity, was sensibly affected by Greek thought and Roman institutions. Paul and the early Fathers, trained in the learning of the Greeks, put the doctrines of the new religion into the form best adapted to appeal to the Or:coo-Roman world; the formulation of its dog mas was sensibly influenced by Roman legal ideas; and the hierarchic organization with which the Christian Church came into medifeval Europe was modeled on the administrative sys tem of the Roman Empire. If it is broadly true, as Maine has said, that the modern civilized na tions are those that derive their law from Rome, their art from Greece. and their religion from Judea. it is also true, as Freeman has said, that "of all European history Rome is the centre:" for the Roman Empire sununed up the chief results of I he ancient civilization aid transmitted them to the modern world. See Romb:; CnRts