becoming the staple of the higher education, could never make up for the lack of moral discipline. If we find a spirit of lawlessness in the coming age, and a want of self-restraint in dealing with enemies or opponents, we shall not be far wrong in ascribing it in great part to the loss of the wholesome home influence, and to the introduction of an education outside the home, which entirely failed to make up for the decay of the simple old training in duty and discipline. The fact is that the Romans were now coming under the influence of a new idea of life, in which the individual played a more important part than ever before at Rome. The Roman of the past had grown up modelled on a type and fixed in a group, so that the individual had little chance of asserting himself; but now we find him asserting himself in every direction, and in every class of society. To think for oneself, even in matters of religion; to speak from personal motives in the senate or law-courts; to aim at one’s own advancement in position or wealth—all this seemed natural and inevitable to the men of that day. And so by degrees the individual became the mainspring of action instead of the State. There were some noble exceptions, but most of the leading men played their own game, and often won it at the expense of the State. Many a general hurried on operations towards the close of his command so as not to be superseded before he could earn a triumph, and pass in splendid procession up to the temple on the Capitol, with chained captives following his chariot. And the small men became more and more unwilling to serve as soldiers in distant lands, and more and more rebellious against discipline. In little more than half-a-century after Hannibal had left Italy the Roman armies were beginning to be incapable of their work. Along with this too rapid growth of the individual, we have to take account of the sudden incoming of wealth and growth of capital. The old Roman family group had no capital except its land and stock. But now, as the result of plunder and extortion in the provinces, most men of the upper classes had some capital in money, and this was almost always invested in public works and State undertakings of all kinds, _e.g._ the raising of taxes and the fitting out of fleets and armies. These things were all done by contract, and the contracts were taken by companies, in which every man was a shareholder who had anything to invest. Thus the inflow of wealth brought with it the desire of making money, and the forum of Rome became a kind of stock-exchange in which the buying and selling of shares was always going on, and where every man was trying to outwit his neighbour. Of a really productive use of capital in industry or commerce we hear very little; and it would seem that the Roman of that day had no idea of using his means or opportunities in ways likely to produce well-being in the world.