As the idea of the beautiful is a principle divinely positive in the arts and life of the Greeks, so greatness defined everything in the Roman contest for supremacy, and was the central point around which developed all the historical impressiveness of their character. Of all arts architecture most admits of artificial beauty, which they could not confer, and therefore they made it only great. Chaste elegance, that genuine sense of the artist, was never born in the Roman mind; but they possessed uncommon force of nature, and best succeeded in stamping on their fabrics the air of undaunted firmness in the struggle of rude reality. The Roman style is rugged even to uncouthness, but it has the redeeming quality of actually speaking the mind of its authors, the whole course of whose history was indomitable will. The conquest of the world, and not the perfection of art, was their destiny; not the sudden achievement of a few assaults, the results of which should perish with their fortunate leaders, but the gradual advance of a single one, through many champions, destined through all vicissitudes to universal empire. From the first moment Rome appears on the political stage, this one great mission is manifest in all her action and arts. Never was greatness more truly national, but it was in diametrical contrast to the glory of the Grecian race. Individuals stood forth among the latter, in every separate department of intellectual proficiency, which rendered each a distinct model; but at Rome, with a longer list of great men than any other nation, their personal being is lost in that of the state. Camillus, Curius, and Scipio had no aim or aspiration of their own; they existed but to fortify and extend the commonwealth in their own generation, and to transmit the like calling to their successors. Rome only had a personal existence; her bravest children might perish, but herself the eternal, was unaffected; others, to whose fortunes she was equally indifferent, would arise to take their places in the continuous battle of seven centuries to attain the subjugation of the world. It was for Rome alone of all nations to return thanks to a vanquished general for not having despaired of the republic. She never could produce or appreciate mere art and beauty, and whatever of elegant refinement the Augustan age finally possessed was a borrowed gift which the holders knew not how to exercise.