COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 567
The influence of the Roman dominion as a constant element
of union and fusion required the more urgently and forcibly
to be brought forward in a history of the contemplation of the
universe, since we are able to recognise the traces of this
influence in its remotest consequences even at a period when
the bond of political union had become less compact, and was
even partially destroyed by the inroads of barbarians. Claudian,
who stands forth in the decline of literature during the
latter and more disturbed age of Theodosius the Great and
his sons, distinguished for the endowment of a revived poetic
productiveness, still sings, in too highly laudatory strains,
of the dominion of the Romans.*
Hcec est, in gremium victos quce sola recepit,
Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit,
Matris, non domince, ritu; civesque vocavit
Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxiL
Hujus pacificis debemus morions omnes
Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur hospes. . . .
External means of constraint, artificially arranged civil
institutions, and long continued servitude, might certainly
tend to unite nations by destroying the individual existence
of each one, but the feeling of the unity and common condition
of the whole human race, and of the equal rights of all men, has
a nobler origin, and is based on the internal promptings of
the spirit and on the force of religious convictions. Christianity
has materially contributed to call forth this idea of the unity
of the human race and has thus tended to exercise a
favourable influence on the humanisation of nations in their
morals, manners, and institutions. Although closely interwoven
with the earliest doctrines of Christianity, this idea of
humanity met with only a slow and tardy recognition, for at
the time when the new faith was raised at Byzantium, from
political motives, to be the established religion of the state, its
adherents were already deeply involved in miserable party
dissensions, whilst intercourse with distant nations was
impeded, and the foundations of the empire were shaken in
many directions by external assaults. Even the personal
freedom of entire races of men long found no protection in
Christian states, from ecclesiastical landowners and corporate
bodies.
* C!audian in Secundum consulatum Stilliclionis, v. 150-155.