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Bernardo Gallegos
Page 04 - Part B
The Roman people were a concrete, practical,
constructive nation of farmers and herdsmen (R. 14), merchants and
soldiers, governors and executives. The whole of the early struggle of the
Latins to extend their rule and absorb the other tribes of the peninsula
called for practical rulers--warriors who were at the same time
constructive statesmen and executives who possessed power and insight,
energy, and personality. The long struggle for political and social
rights, [1] carried on by the common people (_plebeians_) with the ruling
class (_patricians_), tended early to shape their government along rough
but practical lines, [2] and to elevate law and orderly procedure among
the people. The later extension of the Empire to include many distant
lands--how vast the Roman Empire finally became may be seen from the map
on the following page--called still more for a combination of force,
leadership, tolerance, patience, executive power, and insight into the
psychology of subject people to hold such a vast empire together. Only a
great, creative people, working along very practical lines, could have
used and used so well the opportunity which came to Rome.
Had Rome tried to impose her rule and her ways
and her mode of thought on her subject people, and to reduce them to
complete subjection to her, as the modern German and Austrian Empires, for
example, tried to do with the peoples who came under their control, the
Roman Empire could never have been created, and what would have saved
civilization from complete destruction during the period of the barbarian
invasions is hard to see. Instead, Rome treated her subjects as her
friends, and not as conquered peoples; led them to see that their
interests were identical with hers; gave them large local independence and
freedom in government, under her strong control of general affairs; opened
up her citizenship [4] and the line of promotion in the State to her
provincials; [5] and won them to the peace and good order which she
everywhere imposed by the advantages she offered through a common
language, common law, common coinage, common commercial arrangements,
common state service, and the common treatment of all citizens of every
race. [6] In consequence, the provincial was willingly absorbed into the
common Roman race [7]--absorbed in dress, manners, religion, political and
legal institutions, family names, and, most important of all, in language.
As a result, race pride and the native tongues very largely disappeared,
and Latin became the spoken language of all except the lower classes
throughout the whole of the Western Empire. Only in the eastern
Mediterranean, where the Hellenic tongue and the Hellenic civilization
still dominated, did the Latin language make but little headway, and here
Rome had the good sense not to try to impose her speech or her culture.
Instead she absorbed the culture of the East, while the East accepted in
return the Roman government and Roman law, and Latin in time became the
language of the courts and of government.
Source: THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, by ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
[ Part A ]
[ Part B ]
[ Part C ]
[ Part D ]
[ Part E ]
[ Part F ]
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