Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/40

22 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. not from an ideal attempt toward the universal pro- portionment of life's contents. It was also grounded in a sense of personal dignity. To give way to passion was beneath a Eoman. In affairs within the city, self-control was utmost political common sense; as to external military politics, self-control lay in daring what might be dared, in fearing what should be feared, and in abiding with unshakeable fortitude in whatever was resolved. The Greeks disapproved what was un- limited or unrestrained, and conceived the principle of this disapproval as the Komans did not. Never- theless, actually, Roman life was limited more nar- rowly. Its object and scope were the honor and aggrandizement of the State, the honor and enrichment of the family. Without imagination, without broad desire for knowledge, with little love of beauty, with no stinging capacity for joy, undistracted from the practical task in hand, the Roman was from earliest times the grown-up man of affairs. Through his lack of individualism, his abundant caution and conserva- tism, he preserved and perfected fixed types of civic life ; he was the paterfamilias, he was the citizen, he was the citizen-soldier, he was the magistrate, and ful- filled all these functions excellently well, pursuing whatever lay within their scope with unexampled pertinacity and fortitude. In the history of human development few matters are so important as the contact between the Roman and the Greek. Rome subjugated Greece, but the effect of the Roman on the Greek is of slight interest. It is the influence of Greece upon Rome, and upon Italy unified under Roman dominance, that is of