era equipped with a civilization scarcely at all inferior to that of the present day in relation to art, literature, and social ethics, but a sustaining principle, which could endow the splendid fabric with quality of permanency, was wanting. It was vulnerable within and without; and two powerful enemies, superstition and the barbarian, were awaiting the opportune moment to prey upon it. The dissolution commenced within; ignorance of natural science allowed the first to work havoc in its vital parts; the barbarian assaulted the infected mass from without, and the ruin became complete.
The political unification of the most civilized portion of the globe was begun by the conquests of Alexander and completed by those of Rome. Sociological homogeneity was attendant on centralization of government. From Britain to North Africa and from Spain to Asia Minor thought flowed through the same channels. Rome and Greece dominated the world between them; while the former assumed the physical control of the nations, the latter held their mental faculties in subjection. Progressively, however, influences began to permeate the Empire which were foreign to both Latins and Hellenes. East and west confronted each other on the Asiatic frontier; Egyptians and Jews were commingled with the Latin and Greek races in the great mart of Alexandria. Oriental mysticism became rife, and gods of every nationality were received into the bosom of Rome.[1] In the
- [Footnote: children of needy parents; see Pliny, Panegyric., 27, etc. The fact is
also indicated by coins (ALIMENTA ITALIAE), and a sculptured slab found in the Roman forum; Cohen, ii, p. 18; Middleton, Rome, etc., Lond., 1892, p. 346. Faustina, wife of Antoninus Pius, also busied herself in a similar way, as is evidenced by well-known coins (PUELLULAE FAUSTINIANAE); Cohen, ii, p. 433.]*
- ↑ Isis and Serapis, after a stormy career which lasted more than a
