the judgment-seat, just early enough not to
bring the process down on their own neck. On the way there is no
opportunity in any retired alley which they do not avail themselves
of, for they have gorged themselves with wine. Reluctantly they
come to the tribunal and give audience to the parties. Those who
are concerned bring forward their cause. The juryman orders the
witnesses to come forward; he himself steps aside. When he returns,
he declares that he has heard everything, and asks for the documents.
He looks into the writings; he can hardly keep his eyes open for wine.
When he thereupon withdraws to consider his sentence, he says to his
boon-companions, 'What concern have I with these tiresome people?
why should we not rather go to drink a cup of mulse mixed with Greek wine,
and accompany it with a fat fieldfare and a good fish, a veritable pike
from the Tiber island?' Those who heard the orator laughed; but was it
not a very serious matter, that such things were subjects for laughter?"

Chapter XII

Nationality, Religion, and Education

Paramount Ascendency of Latinism and Hellenism

In the great struggle of the nationalities within the wide circuit
of the Roman empire, the secondary nations seem at this period on
the wane or disappearing. The most important of them all, the
Phoenician, received through the destruction of Carthage a mortal
wound from which it slowly bled to death. The districts of Italy
which had hitherto preserved their old language and manners,
Etruria and Samnium, were not only visited by the heaviest blows
of the Sullan reaction, but were compelled also by the political
levelling of Italy to adopt the Latin language and customs in
public intercourse, so that the old native languages were reduced
to popular dialects rapidly decaying. There no longer appears
throughout the bounds of the Roman state any nationality entitled
even to compete with the Roman and the Greek.

Latinism

On the other hand the Latin nationality was, as respected both
the extent of its diffusion and the depth of its hold, in the most
decided ascendant. As after the Social war any portion of Italian
soil might belong to any Italian in full Roman ownership, and any
god of an Italian temple might receive Roman gifts; as in all
Italy, with the exception of the region beyond the Po, the Roman
law thenceforth had exclusive authority, superseding all other
civic and local laws; so the Roman language at that