Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/69

CHAP. II.
-----They had too much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to respect their superior wisdom and power^[1]. Nor was the influence of the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits of that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the progress of colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the Adriatic to the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia was covered with Greek cities ; and the long reign of the Macedonian kings had introduced a silent revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their pompous courts those princes united the elegance of Athens with the luxury of the east ; and the example of the court was imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects. Such was the general division of the Roman empire into the Latin and Greek languages. To these we may add a third distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt. The use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians^[2]. The slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion of the conquerors^[3]. Those nations had submitted to the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city ; and it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyptian was admitted into the senate of Rome^[4].

1. There is not, I believe, from Dionysius to Libanius, a single Greek critic who mentions Virgil or Horace. They seem ignorant that the Romans had any good writers.
2. The curious reader may see in Dupin, (Biblioth6que Ecclesiastique, torn. xix. p. 1. c. 8.) how much the use of the Syriac and Egyptian languages was still preserved.
3. See Juvenal, sat. iii. and xv. ; Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 16.
4. Dion Cassius, 1. Ixxvii. p. 1275. The first instance happened under the reign of Septimius Severus.