The Evolution of States. J. M. Robertson

It ought now to be unnecessary to point out that Christianity was no such factor, but rather the reverse, as the history of Byzantium so thoroughly proves. No Christian writer of antiquity, save perhaps Augustine[90] in a moment of moral aspiration, shows any perception of the political causation of the decay and fall of the Empire.[91] The forces of intellectual progress that did arise and collapse in the decline and the Dark Ages were extra-Christian heretical forces—Sabellian, Arian, Pelagian, anti-ritualistic, anti-monastic, Iconoclastic. These once deleted, Christianity was no more a progressive force among the new peoples than it was among the old; and the later European progress demonstrably came from wholly different causes—new empire, forcing partial peace; Saracen contact, bringing physics, chemistry, and mathematics; new discovery, making new commerce; recovery of pagan lore, making new speculation; printing, making books abundant; gunpowder, making arms a specialty; and the fresh competition and disruption of States, setting up fruitful differences, albeit also preparing new wars. To try to trace these causes in detail would be to attempt a complete sociological sketch of European history, a task far beyond the scope of the present work; though we shall later make certain special surveys that may suffice to illustrate the general law. In the meantime, the foregoing and other bird's-eye views of some ancient developments may illustrate those of modern times.

      FOOTNOTES:

       Table of Contents

      [12] Cp. A. Schwegler, Römische Geschichte, 1853, i, 610–615; Pelham, Outlines of Roman History, 1893, p. 25. When Professor Ferrero (Greatness and Decline of Rome, Eng. trans. 1907, i, 5) pronounces that "The Romans were a primitive people without the defects peculiar to a primitive people," he sets up a needless mystification. They had the defects of their own culture stage, which was far beyond that of "primitives" in the general sense of the term. They were "semi-civilised barbarians," with a long past of institutional life.

[13] It might be an interesting inquiry whether a grouping by threes could have arisen from a primary union of two exogamous clans.

[14] Schwegler, i, 616. The origin of tribus from three is not an accident special to the Romans. Among the Spartans and Dorians likewise there were three stocks (cp. K.O. Müller, The Dorians, Eng. tr. 1830, i, 35–37; Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité antique, 8e édit. p. 135, note 2); and the great number of Greek epithets in which "three" or "thrice" enters is a proof of the special importance anciently attached to the number. Cp. K.D. Hüllmann, Ursprung der römischen Verfassung durch Vergleichungen erläutert, 1835, p. 24.

[15] Greenidge, Roman Public Life, 1901, p. 1.

[16] Pelham, p. 20; Fustel de Coulanges, p. 132, sq.; Schwegler, i, 610, 615; Ihne, Early Rome, 1897, p. 108; Ortolan, Hist. de la Législation romaine, ed. Labbé, 1880, pp. 35, 36.

[17] Schwegler, i, 611, following Dionysius. Cp. Meyer, ii, 514.

[18] Cp. Fustel de Coulanges, pp. 13, 24, 132, 179; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 1889, pp. 245, 247, 251, etc.; Jevons, Introd. to the History of Religion, ch. xii.

[19] Cp. Schwegler, i, 628; Ihne, Early Rome, p. 107; Dupond, Magistratures romaines sous la République, 1877, p. 19. The source of the plebs is one of the vexed points of Roman origins; and the view that they were primarily a conquered population is not yet generally accepted. See Shuckburgh, History of Rome, 1894, p. 44. The true solution seems to be that the plebs were always being added to in various ways—by aliens, by "broken men," by discarded clients, and by fugitives. Cp. Fustel de Coulanges, p. 279.

[20] Schwegler, i, 621–28, 636–38; Fustel de Coulanges, p. 277. Note the expression populo plebique in Livy, xxix, 27; Cicero, Pro Murena, i; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i, 17. Ortolan (endorsed by Labbé) argues (work cited, p. 31) that populus plebsque no more implies separation than senatus populusque. But this argument destroys itself. The Senate as such was distinct from the populus, as having auctoritas, while the populus had only potestas. The phrase then was not a pleonasm. By this very analogy populus plebsque implies a vital legal distinction. Niebuhr, who first made the facts clear (cp. his Lectures, Eng. trans. ed. 1870, p. 107), followed Vico, who was led to the true view by knowledge of the separateness of the popolo from the commune in the Italian republics.

[21] Schwegler, i, 619; E.W. Robertson, as cited, p. xxvii. Yet the constant tradition is that not only did the mass of the people live mainly on farinaceous food and vegetables, but the upper classes also in the early period ate meat only on festival days. Cp. Guhl and Koner, The Life of the Greeks and Romans, Eng. trans., pp. 501–2; Pliny, H.N., xviii, 3, 19; Ramsay, Roman Antiquities, 1851, p. 437. The cattle then were presumably sold to the people of the Etruscan and Campanian cities. Professor Ferrero leaves this problem in a state of mystery. The early Romans, he writes, had "few head of cattle" (i, 2); but land capture, he admits, meant increase (p. 5); and at the time of the Roman Protectorate over all Italy (266 B.C.) he recognises "vast wandering herds of oxen and sheep, without stable or pen" (p. 9), conducted by slave shepherds. On such lands there must have been a considerable amount of cattle-breeding at a much earlier period. On the other hand, noting that the Romans early imported terracottas and metals from Etruria, Phœnicia, and Carthage, "besides ivory-work and ornaments, perfumes for funerals, purple for the ceremonial robes of the magistrates, and a few slaves" (p. 3), Professor Ferrero lightly affirms that "it was not difficult to pay for these in exports: timber for shipbuilding, and salt, practically made up the list."

[22] Cp. Schwegler, i, 451, 617–19; ii, 108; E.W. Robertson, Historical Essays in connection with the Land, the Church, etc., 1872, pp. xxvi-vii, 244.

[23] E.W. Robertson, as cited, pp. 243–44; Schwegler, i, 617–19.

[24] E.W. Robertson, p. xxv.

[25] Schwegler, i, 619, and refs.; Robertson, pp. 244–45; Ferrero, i, 9; Greenidge, Rom. Pub. Life, p. 35.

[26] Cp. E.W. Robertson, as cited, p. xxv.

[27] Schwegler, i, 629; Robertson, p. xxvii.

[28] Schwegler, i, 620 and refs.

[29] Mommsen (ch. xiii. i, 200) puts this point in some confusion, making the patricians live mostly in the country. Meyer (ii, 521) seems to put a quite contrary view. Greenidge (History

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