Rome :: Roman Culture Rome Military History Essays

Rome The Greeks, after their country had been rock-bottom into a province, imputed the triumphs of Rome, not to the merit, but to the FORTUNE, of the republic. The inconstant goddess, who so blindly distributes and resumes her favours, had instanter consented (such was the language of envious flattery) to resign her wings, to descend from her globe, and to fix her firm and unalterable throne on the banks of the Tiber.1 A wiser Greek, who has composed, with a philosophic spirit, the memorable narration of his own times, deprived his countrymen of this vain and delusive comfort by break to their view the deep foundations of the greatness of Rome.2 The fidelity of the citizens to each other, and to the state, was confirmed by the habits of education and the prejudices of religion. Honour, as well as virtue, was the principle of the republic the pushy citizens laboured to deserve the solemn glories of a triumph and the ardour of the romish youth was kindled into active emulation, as of ten-spot as they beheld the internal images of their ancestors.3 The temperate struggles of the patricians and plebeians had finally established the firm and equal balance of the composition which united the freedom of popular assemblies with the authority and wisdom of a senate-and the administrator powers of a regal magistrate. When the consul displayed the standard of the republic, each citizen bound himself, by the financial obligation of an oath, to draw his sword in the cause of his country, till he had discharged the sacred duty by a array service of ten years. This wise institution continually poured into the field the rising generations of freemen and soldiers and their numbers were beef up by the warlike and populous states of Italy, who, after a brave resistance, had yielded to the valour, and embraced the alliance, of the Romans. The quick-scented historian, who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio and beheld the ruin of Carthage,4 has accurately descri bed their military system their levies, arms, exercises, subordination, marches, encampments and the invincible legion, superior in active strength to the Macedonian phalanx of Philip and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war, Polybius has deduced the spirit and success of a people incapable of fear and impatient of repose. The ambitious design of conquest, which might have been defeat by the seasonable conspiracy of mankind, was attempted and achieved and the perpetual violation of jurist was maintained by the political virtues of prudence and courage.