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, France, Germany, Spain, North Africa,
and Italy were ushered into the calendar of mankind, and were
ready to bear the burden when the mighty city on the Tiber let
the sceptre fall from its enfeebled hands.
Rome fell. The more accurate historians of our time correct the
old legend of death from senile decay or from the effect of
dissipation.
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