The management of foreign affairs was at all times exclusively in the hands of the Senate, except that the question of declaring war or concluding peace must be submitted to the vote of the people in one of the popular assemblies. The Senate also regulated the religious affairs of the Roman state (after this power fell from the hands of the comitia curiata); assigned consuls and prætors their provinces of administration and command; fixed the amount of troops to be raised both from the Roman citizens and from the Italian allies; sent and received ambassadors; controlled the calendar, adding to or taking away from a year so as to lengthen the term of a favorite official or to shorten the term of an unpopular one; decreed or refused triumphs to Roman generals, and possessed a general control over the financial affairs of the state. CHAPTER III THE FIRST GREAT MELTING POT The variety of things which are able to serve as a basis for human vanity are almost unlimited. This holds true as well in the case of national vanity as in the case of the vanity of the individual. The most backward and least attractive of human races generally consider themselves superior to the rest of mankind, and too often on account of the peculiarities which, in the minds of others, are the most convincing proofs of their inferiority. Even among the more advanced races of mankind great pride is often manifested in attributes which, properly viewed, are rather a disgrace, or at least a detriment to the race. Few things in the world are held in greater respect, by the great masses of men, than a long line of ancestry of unmixed blood. It seems to be generally felt that the purity of any race, that is, its freedom from interbreeding with outsiders, is a matter of credit. The lesson of history, however, shows that purity of blood in any nation is an evidence of, or perhaps rather cause of, degeneracy and decay, and that the great nations of history have been the cosmopolitan races, the races of mixed descent and hybrid ancestry. If it be thought that the Jewish people are an exception to this, let it be recalled that the Jews are a mixed people, originally of many conflicting tribes, and later continually mixed with other races. In the pages of ancient history Rome stands out as the first great cosmopolitan race, or at least the first mixed race, in the creation of which we are able to watch the melting pot in full operation.