It might have been anticipated that there would be a clear division of functions between the officials of Greater Rome and of the city itself, that the Emperor with his staff would manage the concerns of the Empire, and the Senate would govern the city; but it was long before the Government of the city sank to the position of an ordinary municipal Government. The division of the provinces into Senatorial and Imperial ultimately broke down, and was indeed from the beginning formal rather than real; it was a compromise by which the old nobility was conciliated, but the honours conceded to the old aristocracy became more and more titular as time went on; the Roman Senate could not step down, and it refused to accept the position of the city Council of Rome, or even of the Council of Italy. It was never formally disestablished, but it was eventually crowded out, though it was still sufficiently self-conscious, when Tacitus and the younger Pliny were writing, to resent the predominance of the Imperial Household, and to worship the traditions of an omnipotence which it believed to have been the realization of those dreams of liberty so dear to the Greek philosophers. So long as Rome continued to be the centre of the administration of the Empire, the Senate of Rome was always something more than a municipal council, and the name of the body which had once governed the Empire was always dignified by associations which could attach to no other assembly. IV Slavery The politician of to-day is as incapable of imagining a wholesome state of society in which slavery is a recognized and universal institution, as he is of believing that any political constitution can be really good without representative government. The Romans, however, contrived to civilize the world, so far as it was accessible to them, without representative government and with slavery. Slavery is, in fact, a necessary condition in the evolution of civilized society, and was an important factor in the evolution of the Roman Empire. Teuton and Celt, no less than Greek or Roman or Phœnician, equally used and doubtless equally abused the institution; no race can claim to have been at all periods of its history free from the curse.