Latin is now no longer a universal language; and the direct influence of ancient Rome, which once seemed like an immortal energy, is at last, like all energies, becoming slowly absorbed in its own results. Yet the Latin language is still the necessary foundation of one half of human knowledge, and the forms created by Roman genius underlie the whole of our civilisation. So long as mankind look before and after, the name of Rome will be the greatest of those upon which their backward gaze can be turned. In Greece men first learned to be human: under Rome mankind first learned to be civilised. Law, government, citizenship, are all the creations of the Latin race. At a thousand points we still draw directly from the Roman sources. The codes of Latin jurists are the direct source of all systems of modern law. The civic organisation which it was the great work of the earlier Roman Empire to spread throughout the provinces is the basis of our municipal institutions and our corporate social life. The names of our months are those of the Latin year, and the modern calendar is, with one slight alteration, that established by Julius Caesar. The head of the Catholic Church is still called by the name of the president of a Republican college which goes back beyond the beginnings of ascertained Roman history. The architecture which we inherit from the Middle Ages, associated by an accident of history with the name of the Goths, had its origin under the Empire, and may be traced down to modern times, step by step, from the basilica of Trajan and the palace of Diocletian. These are but a few instances of the inheritance we have received from Rome. But behind the ordered structure of her law and government, and the majestic fabric of her civilisation, lay a vital force of even deeper import; the strong grave Roman character, which has permanently heightened the ideal of human life. It is in their literature that the inner spirit of the Latin race found its most complete expression. In the stately structure of that imperial language they embodied those qualities which make the Roman name most abidingly great-- honour, temperate wisdom, humanity, courtesy, magnanimity; and the civilised world still returns to that fountain-head, and finds a second mother-tongue in the speech of Cicero and Virgil. INDEX OF AUTHORS Accius, L. ... 12 Aelius, P. ... 29 Aelius, Sex. ... 29 Aemilianus, Palladius Rutilius Taurus ... 272 Afranius, L. ... 15 Africanus, P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus ... 33 Agrippa, M. ... 162 Albinus, Clodius ... 262 Alimentus, L. Cincius ...28 Ambrosius ... 265, 271 Andronicus, L. Livius ... 4 Antias, Valerius ... 37 Antipater, L. Caelius ... 33 Antonius, M. ... 36 Apollinaris, _see_ Sidonius. Apuleius, L. ... 238 Arbiter, Petronius ... 183 Arnobius ... 255 Asconius, _see_ Pedianus. Asper, Aemilius ... 204 Atta, Quinctius ... 15 Atticus, T. Pomponius ... 74, 86 Augustus, G. Julius Caesar Octavianus ... 121, 162