DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0030
14
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
But whilst on the one hand Rome centred within
herself the halo of this earthly glory, she was indebted
for art, polish, literature, and that culture which gives
lustre to life, to the talents and genius of the Hellenes.
Whilst an insatiable craving for conquest and depreda-
tion, and the necessity of practising a policy adapted to
effect the co-ordination of its subject-peoples into fitly-
governed groups, caused the Romans to concentrate their
attention on the art of governing mankind, the Hellenes,
whose intuitive genius and knowledge of human nature
had laid down the constitutional laws of society, failed in
the application of these laws to the government of the
peoples they conquered. This arose by reason of the
contemptuous distance at which they held themselves from
all nations alien to their own blood. The Hellenes were
accustomed to style all other people Barbarians who
did not belong to their country and peculiar race.
Even in the palmy days of Greece, when her undoubted
superiority was demonstrated in arts and arms, and her
conquests over the Oriental world dazzled mankind at
large, even then she forbore with haughty disdain to
assimilate the conquered peoples into an integral bond of
union with herself. The “ Hellenic ” and “ Barbarian ”
worlds were thus kept apart from each other. The
profound individuality of the Hellenic spirit repudiated
submission to a national unity, binding conquerors and
conquered in one family tie. Proudly disdainful, and
intellectually dominant over their Roman rivals, the later
Hellenes (when the arms of Rome, victorious over Greece,
had finally subdued her various provinces) still main-
tained their supremacy by the power of understanding,
the strength of imagination, and the brilliancy of thought
over the Roman conquerors. Their arts of culture, at
first centred amongst themselves, were afterwards diffused
at large through the Roman world, and formed the basis
of that literary and artistical culture second to none in
the world.
When first the intellectual development of the Hellenes
was removed from Greece proper, it centred in Alexandria,
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
But whilst on the one hand Rome centred within
herself the halo of this earthly glory, she was indebted
for art, polish, literature, and that culture which gives
lustre to life, to the talents and genius of the Hellenes.
Whilst an insatiable craving for conquest and depreda-
tion, and the necessity of practising a policy adapted to
effect the co-ordination of its subject-peoples into fitly-
governed groups, caused the Romans to concentrate their
attention on the art of governing mankind, the Hellenes,
whose intuitive genius and knowledge of human nature
had laid down the constitutional laws of society, failed in
the application of these laws to the government of the
peoples they conquered. This arose by reason of the
contemptuous distance at which they held themselves from
all nations alien to their own blood. The Hellenes were
accustomed to style all other people Barbarians who
did not belong to their country and peculiar race.
Even in the palmy days of Greece, when her undoubted
superiority was demonstrated in arts and arms, and her
conquests over the Oriental world dazzled mankind at
large, even then she forbore with haughty disdain to
assimilate the conquered peoples into an integral bond of
union with herself. The “ Hellenic ” and “ Barbarian ”
worlds were thus kept apart from each other. The
profound individuality of the Hellenic spirit repudiated
submission to a national unity, binding conquerors and
conquered in one family tie. Proudly disdainful, and
intellectually dominant over their Roman rivals, the later
Hellenes (when the arms of Rome, victorious over Greece,
had finally subdued her various provinces) still main-
tained their supremacy by the power of understanding,
the strength of imagination, and the brilliancy of thought
over the Roman conquerors. Their arts of culture, at
first centred amongst themselves, were afterwards diffused
at large through the Roman world, and formed the basis
of that literary and artistical culture second to none in
the world.
When first the intellectual development of the Hellenes
was removed from Greece proper, it centred in Alexandria,