case, he could always protect himself against an unjust decision by an "appeal to Cæsar"; that is, to the emperor at Rome. St. Paul did this on one occasion when on trial for his life.1

The wall extended between the Tyne and the Solway, a distance of seventy miles. It was built of concrete, faced with square blocks. The height is nearly twenty feet; the thickness, about eight feet. Along the wall were numerous towers and gates, and a little to the north of it stretched an earthen rampart protected by a deep ditch. A broad road, lined with seventeen military camps, ran between the two fortifications.

Wherever he lived, a Roman citizen enjoyed, both for his person and his property, the protection of Roman law.

Improvement of Roman law

70. The Roman Law and the Latin Language

The Romans were the most legal-minded people of antiquity. It was their mission to give laws to the world. Almost at the beginning of the republic they framed the code of the Twelve Tables,2 which long remained the basis of their jurisprudence. This code, however, was so harsh, technical, and brief that it could not meet the needs of a progressive state. The Romans gradually improved their legal system, especially after they began to rule over conquered nations. The disputes which arose between citizens and subjects were decided by the prætors or provincial governors in accordance with what seemed to them to be principles of justice and equity. These principles gradually found a place in

1 See Acts, XXV, 9-12.

2 See page 151.

Roman law, together with many rules and observances of foreign peoples. Roman law in this way tended to take over and absorb all that was best in ancient jurisprudence.

Thus, as the extension of the citizenship carried the principles and practice of Roman law to every quarter of the empire, the spirit of that law underwent an entire change. Character of It became exact, impartial, liberal, humane. It Roman law limited the use of torture to force confession from persons accused of crime. It protected the child against a father's tyranny. It provided that a master who killed a slave should be punished as a murderer, and even taught that all men are originally free by the law of nature and therefore that slavery is contrary to natural right. Justice it defined as "the steady and abiding purpose to give every man that which is his own." 1 Roman law, which began as the rude code of a primitive people, ended as the most refined and admirable system of jurisprudence ever framed by man. This law, as we shall see later, has passed from ancient Rome to modern Europe.2

The conquest by Latin of the languages of the world is almost as interesting and important a story as the conquest by Rome of the nations of the world. At the beginning of Latin in Roman history Latin was the speech of only the Italy people of Latium. Beyond the limits of Latium Latin came into contact with the many different languages spoken in early Italy. Some of them, such as Greek and Etruscan, soon disappeared from Italy after Roman expansion, but those used by native Italian peoples showed more power of resistance. It was not until the last century B.C. that Latin was thoroughly established in the central and southern parts of the peninsula. After the Social War the Italian peoples became citizens of Rome, and with Roman citizenship went the use of the Latin tongue. The Romans carried their language to the barbarian peoples of the West, as they had carried it to Italy. Their missionaries were colonists, merchants, soldiers, and public officials. The Latin spoken by them was eagerly taken up by the rude, unlettered natives, who tried

Latin in the

western provinces

1 Institutes, bk. i, tit. i.

2 See page 331.

to make themselves as Roman as possible in dress, customs, and speech. This provincial Latin was not simply the language of the upper classes; the common people themselves used it freely, as we know from thousands of inscriptions found in western and central Europe. In the countries which now make up Spain, France, Switzerland, southern Austria, England, and North Africa, the old national tongues were abandoned for the Latin of Rome.

The decline of the Roman Empire did not bring about the downfall of the Latin language in the West. It became the Romance basis of the so-called Romance languages languages French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Rumanian which arose in the Middle Ages out of the spoken Latin of the common people. Even our English language, which comes to us from the speech of the Germanic invaders of Britain, contains so many words of Latin origin that we can scarcely utter a sentence without using some of them. The rule of Rome has passed away; the language of Rome still remains to enrich the intellectual life of mankind.

71. The Municipalities of the Roman Empire

The world under Roman rule was a world of cities. Some had earlier been native settlements, such as those in Gaul Prevalence of before the Roman conquest. Others were the city life splendid Hellenistic cities in the East. Many more were of Roman origin, arising from the colonies and fortified camps in which citizens and soldiers had settled.2 Where Rome did not find cities, she created them.

Not only were the cities numerous, but many of them, even when judged by modern standards, reached great size. Rome Some impor- was the largest, her population being estimated at tant cities from one to two millions. Alexandria came next with more than half a million people. Syracuse was the third metropolis of the empire. Italy contained such important towns

1 See page 127.

2 Several English cities, such as Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester, and Chester, betray in their names their origin in the Roman castra, or camp.

as Verona, Milan, and Ravenna. In Gaul were Marseilles, Nîmes, Bordeaux, Lyons - all cities with a continuous existence to the present day. In Britain York and London were seats of commerce, Chester and Lincoln were military colonies, and Bath was celebrated then, as now, for its medicinal waters. Carthage and Corinth had risen in new splendor from their ashes. Athens was still the home of Greek art and Greek culture.

Bath, the ancient Aqua Sulis, was famous in Roman times for its hot springs. Here are very interesting remains, including a large pool, eighty-three by forty feet in size, and lined at the bottom with the Roman lead, besides smaller bathing chambers and portions of the ancient pipes and conduits. The building and statues are modern restorations.

Asia included such ancient and important centers as Pergamum, Smyrna, Ephesus, Rhodes, and Antioch. The student who reads in his New Testament the Acts of the Apostles will get a vivid impression of some of these great capitals.

Every municipality was a Rome in miniature. It had its forum and senate-house, its temples, theaters, and baths, its circus for racing, and its amphitheater for gladia- Appearance torial combats. Most of the municipalities enjoyed of the cities an abundant supply of water, and some had good sewer systems.

The larger towns had well-paved, though narrow, streets. Pompeii, a small place of scarcely thirty thousand inhabitants, still exists to give us an idea of the appearance of one of these ancient cities. And what we find at Pompeii was repeated on a more splendid scale in hundreds of places from the Danube to the Nile, from Britain to Arabia.

The municipalities of Roman origin copied the government of Rome itself. Each city had a council, or senate, and a popuCity governlar assembly which chose the magistrates. These ment officials were generally rich men; they received no salary, and in fact had to pay a large sum on entering office. Local politics excited the keenest interest. Many of the inscriptions found on the walls of Pompeii are election placards recommending particular candidates for office. Women sometimes took part in political contests. Distributions of grain, oil, and money were made to needy citizens, in imitation of the bad Roman practice. There were public banquets, imposing festivals, wild-beast hunts, and bloody contests of gladiators, like those at Rome.

The busy, throbbing life in these countless centers of the Roman world has long since been stilled. The cities themselves, Survival of the in many instances, have utterly disappeared. Yet Roman munic- the forms of municipal government, together with ipal system the Roman idea of a free, self-governing city, never wholly died out. Some of the most important cities which flourished in southern and western Europe during the later Middle Ages preserved clear traces of their ancient Roman origin.

72. Economic and Social Conditions in the First and Second Centuries

The first two centuries of our era formed the golden age of Roman commerce. The emperors fostered it in many ways. Promotion of Augustus and his successors kept the Mediterracommerce nean free from pirates, built lighthouses and improved harbors, policed the highways, and made travel by land. both speedy and safe. An imperial currency replaced the vari

1 See page 149.

2 For illustrations of Roman coins see the plate facing page 134.