The Latin Spirit in Literature

Abstract

Faced with the problem of depicting the spirit of Rome, the question may well be asked, to begin with: who were the Roman people? The mists that obscure the dawn of Roman history rise to disclose the city of the Seven Hills. But is there any connection, apart from the name which they held in common, between the spear-bearing populace of the Servian city and the citizens of an empire which, nine centuries later, "comprehended the fairest part of the earth and the most civilized portion of mankind"? And who, moreover," of all the names that appear in Roman history, are to be taken as most typically Roman? Are they the Valerii, the Camilli, the Decii, those colourless heroes of the primitive commonwealth, rather than, for example, the Catos, the Scipios and the Gracchi of the second century B.C., or, again, the Caesars and Pompeys of the last days of the republic? What connection, in turn, may be discerned between the senatorial aristocracy whose very names were extinguished in the agony of the republic, and that of imperial times when the provinces of Spain, Gaul and Africa gave not merely senators but emperors to Rome; or between these latter and men like Diocletian, Constantine and Theodosius?