Not only is this unparalleled achievement of the Romans worthy of notice from the historical point of view, but the methods of assimilation and government which gave them their success should be peculiarly interesting and instructive to us in these days of fierce national rivalry for the control of undeveloped lands and natural resources. It is only fair to say that the Romans were more successful among the semi-civilized peoples of the West than they were in the Greek East. It is also true that most of the peoples within the limits of the empire were of the white races, and that towards the dark races the Romans do not seem to have shown the same repugnance on the score of color which modern white peoples show. Furthermore, the acceptance of polytheism in the ancient world facilitated the amalgamation of two alien peoples, because each of them was tolerant of the religion of the other and readily received the other’s deities into its pantheon, whereas, as we know, the monotheistic creeds of modern conquering peoples, like Christianity and Mohammedanism, stand as a barrier between the conquerors and the conquered. In addition to the concrete civilizing agencies which they employed, and which we shall have occasion to notice in a moment, we may find the grounds of their success in certain mental and political qualities and habits. The Romans were not idealists. Consequently they did not try to foist a new political and social system on a conquered people. Indeed they were intellectually phlegmatic and drew back from the task of thinking out a political system in its entirety. They lacked alertness of mind and were not much interested in political philosophy. Their policy at home and abroad was that of opportunism. When they acquired a new territory, therefore, they were content to introduce a few general arrangements and then allow the conquered people to go on living their own life, retaining their old religion, customs, practices, and local institutions. Besides adopting this wise policy of tolerance, in the best period of provincial government the Romans followed sound administrative principles. They established a graded civil service, with reasonable hope of promotion for competent officials. In this way they developed a corps of experienced administrators. They paid adequate salaries to provincial governors and their subordinates, and secured them reasonably well against removal on purely political grounds. The home government kept a close supervision of provincial officials, and courts were provided for the trial of charges brought against them. So far as we know, these wise principles for the government of dependencies were first put into application by the Romans, and few, if any, of our modern empires are observing them with the same care that certain Roman emperors did.[24]