CHAPTER II
THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN
That a spirit of dominion was implanted in the breasts
of those early settlers or refugees who rallied around
Romulus, when, about 750 B.C., he raised his standard on
the Palatine hill, is made plain by the subsequent history of
that infant community; and the native daring which first
won wives for a colony of outcasts, foreshadowed the career
of conquest and empire which eventually attached itself to
the Roman name.[1] Contemned, doubtless, and disregarded
by their more reputable neighbours as a band of adventurers
with nothing to lose, in despair of being respected they
determined to make themselves feared; and the original
leaven was infused through every further accretion of population,
and was entailed as an inheritance on all succeeding
- ↑ It is generally conceded that iconoclastic zeal in respect of primitive Roman history, under the impulse given by Lewis and Niebuhr, has been carried too far. Even now archaeological researches with the spade on the site of the Forum, etc., are producing confirmation of some traditional beliefs already proclaimed as mythical by too astute critics; see Lanciani, The Athenaeum, 1899. In any case the hearsay as to their origin, current among various races, have a psychological interest, and may afford valuable indications as to national proclivities, which must rescue them from the neglect of every judicious historian.
