The cattle, horses and swine were noted and superior to anything in Italy. When Caesar conquered Gaul, he found so much wealth that he paid immense debts and became the richest man in Rome and had the means of rewarding all of his followers. These people wore trousers with a sort of smock coat and a cloak with a hood. Their taste for bright colors converted the Italians from the sober togas which they wore to the bright colors that are characteristic of Italy to-day. Thus early the French began to set the fashions for the world. Yet, so far as legal institutions were concerned, the Gauls were living on the plane of the barbarous customs of the Aryans. A comparison with what is told of the Germans at that time shows that the Germans as yet had not reached even the plane of cultivators of the soil.
The Roman conquest of Gaul was followed by a few abortive rebellions. Then the Gauls settled down to take on the culture of the Romans. Their acquisition was rapid. In a comparatively short time, fine cities, splendid mansions, great estates, productive factories of pottery and arms, made Gaul a very rich province. The Germans across the Rhine looked with wolfish eyes on this wealthy province. At last they gradually edged their way into Gaul and rapidly destroyed the greater part of its civilization. The situation that then arose will be portrayed in the chapter on medieval law.
FROM THE LAWS OF THE CELTIC ARYANS it is necessary to go back in time some thousands of years in order to find the original line of legal development and a much higher condition of law. Leaving on one side the Egyptians, for the reason stated that they are not in that main line, the story of the law of civilized men begins with the Semites in Babylonia, thence it passes to Palestine, thence to the Greeks, the Romans, to continental Europe and to the English. It will appear that this legal evolution proceeds in an unbroken and continuous development with each race passing on something of achievement to its successors. It will be found, as already indicated, that the law continued to be made by the general average opinion of the social aggregate, with different ways of expressing this opinion, while the search still went on to devise a tribunal adequate and competent to ascertain the law in an authoritative way in the form of general rules, yet flexible enough to reconcile the rigidity of a general rule with particular circumstances of peculiar hardship. This search for a competent tribunal is the main problem of law.
The Semitic races are a part of the great Caucasic race. One part of the Semites flowered into a civilization, of the highest order till then attained, in that part of the world where Hebrew legend placed the original birthplace of man. This country was formed by the deposits of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that flow from the highlands, and the fluviatile lands were constantly expanding into the great alluvial plain which lies at the head of the Persian Gulf. Prior to this time the most advanced portion of the human race in Egypt and in Asia had begun the use of the highly polished stone weapons which marked the beginning of the Neolithic Age. This could not have been subsequent to 10,000 B.C. An Aryan or Semitic race called the Sumerians (for the theory of the Mongolian character of the Sumerians is now exploded) was found in possession of this alluvial plain. They first developed to some extent this land. They had their villages, the cultivated lands, irrigating canals and a growing population. Their highest attainment was their development of written language. As in after ages “the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,” so the Semites came down on the Sumerians. Then first began that long series of conquests, whereby the more savage barbarian, seeing a rich land which has reached wealth and the comforts of civilization, true to his bandit and robbing nature which urges him to take what he can from others not of his tribe, moves with overwhelming force upon peace-loving, hard-working communities, and conquers them with fire and sword. Until the last few centuries this has been an easy task.
There has been much foolish talk to the effect that there is something weakening, enervating, and corrupting in honest work, in steady labor, and in the accumulation of wealth, whereby men are enabled to expand their minds and advance the march of civilization. Modern Europeans as well as the Romans and the Greeks used this language because they were descended from such covetous savages, but civilization is not corrupting nor enervating. The simple fact is that men who have work to do, who have learned the lesson of fruitful toil, who delight in seeing around them the works of peace and civilization, cannot always be ready for war, cannot be continually training themselves for battle as can the tribes of savages who are always ready to move in a compact mass on any unprepared community. An Alaric, an Attila, a Theodoric or a Clovis, a Gaulish Brennus, a Vandal Genseric, a Saracenic Othman, or Omar, or a Mongol Tamerlane deserves no credit for having overrun regions full of peaceful civilization. Their weapons were as good and their forces larger. On anything like equal terms the civilized man has always defeated the savage. But the nonsense about the corruptions of civilization is probably the most wearisome stuff in our histories.
As early as perhaps 5000 B.C. a Semitic tribe called Akkad, or Highlanders, moved down upon the Sumerians, and the union of these two races produced the most talented race that had yet appeared on the earth. The conquest was apparently an easy absorption of the invaders. The Semites appropriated as well as they could the Sumerian customs and established themselves in the Sumerian cities. There was developed in the course of a few thousand years by this Babylonian race a perfected system of irrigating canals applied to cultivated lands. The fertility of the country seemed afterwards to the Hebrews to make a veritable Garden of Eden. This race developed for western Asia, at least, the art of writing. The writing was by cuneiform characters upon clay plates that were then hardened and preserved. This method was older than and far superior to the cumbrous hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. The characters stood for syllables. The Semites expanded this writing into a most expressive language. The use of language in writing at once added great divisions to the law.
This race also probably invented the art of making weapons and other articles out of bronze, at first a natural alloy of copper. It is the first sign of metal-working in the history of the human race, and the bronze probably came from the Armenian country. As early as 5000 B.C. bronze articles are found in Babylonia. The working in bronze was probably the result of an accidental discovery, arising from the fact that bronze can easily be made malleable and then hardened. Bronze weapons were made in imitation of the cumbrous polished Neolithic stone weapons that had been in use over four thousand years; but so slow is man to change his ways that the use of bronze in Babylon did not become general until about 3000 B.C. The working in bronze passed to Egypt after a long interval, but the Bronze Age in Egypt did not begin until about 1600 B.C., and it passed to the Greeks about the same time.
The effect of the use of bronze became very soon apparent, as the bronze weapons were gradually made lighter, for they gave superior weapons and bronze tools made possible the dressing of stone and the building of stone structures.
The Babylonian cities with their growing manufactures and wealth formed the greatest center of trade in that age of the world. The main trade route from the Orient, with caravans continually setting out for Asia Minor and the Syrian cities, furnished a very large commerce. Manufacturing of various kinds in these cities made a division of labor possible. It is impossible to overestimate the change that had come. Suddenly, comparatively speaking, we are taken from the pastoral age of the Aryans and the Semites and put into a civilization of cultivated lands, an elaborate system of irrigation, permanent houses, large dwellings made of unbaked bricks or of stone, and of great temples. In fact it is apparent that the system of laws among the Babylonians must be adapted to a very high and complicated civilization of a great commercial community. Outlanders, being of some use, ceased to be enemies. Commerce cultivated good relations. Men in this complicated civilization owed duties to many more different people. A law of contract, of an easy and flexible kind, must develop to suit a commercial and banking stage, with cities engaged in manufacturing and in all kinds of commercial transactions, and a surrounding country engaged in very productive