These iron characters at times are harsh and terrible, but they supplied the inflexible will, which carried the Romans through defeats and disasters to the empire of the world. They explain how Rome, after losing three armies, and seeing Italy overrun, yet persisted till she brought Carthage to her knees. Her enemies were dismayed by the spirit of a nation which hung on to the end, and 'had no nerves.' "Hannibal held some Roman prisoners. The Senate resolved that they should not be ransomed, though it would cost but little; they wished to implant in our soldiers the determination to conquer or die. Polybius says that when Hannibal heard of this, his courage wavered, because Rome's temper in misfortune was so lofty." Again, the soldiers of Marcellus were beaten; the next day they renewed the battle, and Plutarch puts this comment on their leader in Hannibal's mouth. "O gods, what a man is this, that cannot be quiet neither with good nor ill fortune? for he is the only man that never giveth rest to his enemy, when he hath overcome him: nor taketh any for himself when he is overcome. We shall never have done with him, for anything that I see, since shame, whether he win or 1 1 Cicero, De Off. 3. 32. lose, doth still provoke him to be bolder and valianter." 1 Roman literature contains, not by any means all the human virtues, but all the virtues which make great nations. "Do not think," said Cato, rebuking the degeneracy of his own day, "that our ancestors made Rome great by their arms. There were other things which made them great, industry at home, just government abroad, and a free mind in counsel, the slave of neither passion nor crime." 2 Deep reverence for the family and for the woman as mother of the family, selfcontrol, self-sacrifice, the sternest sense of duty, unrelenting determination, dauntless courage, "honourable poverty, fervent zeal for the interests of the state, noble equanimity tried by both extremes of fortune and disturbed by neither " Rome offers us examples of all these in abundance. It is not an accident that her literature has supplied so many mottoes to those English families, whose virtues recall the high courage and public spirit of the great Roman gentes; and it is by an inner sympathy between our race and theirs that Pitt in the Napoleonic wars applied to this 1 Plutarch, V. Marcelli, c. 26. 2 Sallust, Cat. c. 52. K This was Cato of Utica, country the lines written by Horace of his own people, who (As on Algidus the oak Pruned by the biting axe anew) From wounds, from death, from every stroke Add to these the qualities which made them great rulers, observance of their word, a certain generosity and scrupulousness towards the enemy, tact and clemency to the conquered, virtues of which Plutarch's lives of Flamininus and Aemilius Paullus give splendid examples, and it is easy to understand how Augustine, while he criticised Rome, held up to the Christians, citizens of a kingdom in heaven, the pattern of what Romans had done for an earthly country.2 The pattern has its uses in our own times, when the sense of the family and the state is weak, and few people are in danger of asking too much of themselves or of anyone else. Further (and it is one of its 10d. 4. 4. 49 (tr. Gladstone). Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus 2 De Civitate Dei, 5. 18. with schoolboys, who educational advantages), Latin at first appeals much more readily than Greek to the ordinary boy. He may change his allegiance later, but at school it is generally given to Rome. The climate of Greek literature is one we do not habitually breathe; it is for that reason all the better for us, but we must grow used to it before we can fully profit by it or feel at home in its air. And this is particularly so have no great passion to give an account of life, and are more interested in action than in thought. Indeed it is so with most Englishmen; they would agree with Cecil Rhodes. "Referring to his pride in the Roman character, he was wont to say how much he preferred it to the Grecian type the courage, strength and straightness of the Roman to what he called the versatility and shiftiness of the Greek, however beautiful the creations of his genius." 1 Certainly we are in many ways very Roman. The trenchant moral maxims of Rome come home to us more nearly than the delicate and profound musings of Greece. Aequam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem, 1 Sir T. E. Fuller, Cecil Rhodes, p. 258. is more to our taste and in our manner than Who knoweth if this thing that men call Death Are sick and suffering; and those foregone So too, Roman statesmen are more akin to us and more intelligible than Themistocles or Pericles. Take a few passages that relate to the education, methods, and life of a Roman who ruled over our distant ancestors with success, and who in our own days would have been a Governor-General in India. "I remember," says his biographer, "he told me that as a young man he became vehemently fond of the study of philosophy, and pursued it further than a Roman of his rank should, till his mother's good sense checked his violent passion for it." 2 Then his administrative methods. "He knew the temper of the province, and the experience of other governors had taught him that little was effected by force, if it was followed by injustice. He therefore determined to put an end to the causes of the risings. He began with himself and his staff, and set his own house in order, a task which most men find as difficult as the government 1 Euripides, fr. 830 (tr. Murray). 2 Tacitus, Agricola, c. 4. |