We need not follow the Empire in its downward course. We have seen what the work of Rome in the world was to be, and how at last she accomplished it in spite of constant peril and frequent disaster. From Marcus Aurelius onwards the strain of self-defence was too great to allow of progress in any social or political sense. The monarchy became more absolute, the machinery of government more complicated; the masses were over-taxed, and the middle classes ruined. Depopulation again set in, and attempts to remedy it by settling barbarian invaders within the frontiers had some bad results. In less than a century from the death of Marcus the Empire had been divided into two halves of east and west, with a new capital for the eastern half at Byzantium (Constantinople). This, like all the changes of the later Empire, was meant strictly for the purpose of resisting the invaders; but, none the less, they broke at last through all barriers. Yet this did not happen before the name and fame of Rome had made such deep impression on their minds that they sought to deserve the inheritance which had thus fallen to them; despising, indeed, the degenerate provincials who struck no blow in their own defence, but full of respect for the majestic power which had for so many centuries confronted and instructed them.[19] They never swept away the civilisation of the Mediterranean; from Julius onwards the Roman rulers had done so much to defend it, had raised its prestige so high, had so thoroughly organised its internal life, that uncivilised peoples neither could nor would destroy it. We still enjoy its best fruits—the art, science and literature of Hellas, the genius of Rome for law—for “the just interference of the State in the interests and passions of humanity.”[20] We may be apt at the present day, when science has opened out for us so many new paths of knowledge, and inspired us with such enthusiasm in pursuing them, to forget the value of the inheritance which Rome preserved for us. But this is merely a passing phase of feeling; it is really quite inconsistent with the character of an age which recognises the doctrine of evolution as its great discovery. It is natural to civilised man to go back upon his past, and to be grateful for all profit he can gain from the study of his own development. So we may be certain that the claim of Greece and Rome to our eternal gratitude will never cease to be asserted, and their right to teach us still what we could have learnt nowhere else, will never be successfully disputed. _November, 1911._ BIBLIOGRAPHY The following books are suggested as among those most likely to be useful to students who wish to pursue the subject further—