cy and the division of the public lands.

Thus, step by step, the plebeians, by a peaceful civil struggle, had
obtained the consulship, and, indeed, the right to all other civil
offices. They had obtained a right to sit in the senate, had obtained
the declaration of social equality, had settled the great land
question; and yet the will of the people never prevailed. The great
Roman senate, made up of the aristocracy of Rome, an aristocracy of
both plebeians and patricians, ruled with unyielding sway, and the
common people never obtained full possession of their rights and
privileges. Civil strife continued; the gulf between the rich and the
poor, the nobility and the proletariat representing a few rich
political manipulators, on the one side, and the half-fed, half-mad
populace, on the other, grew wider and wider, finally ending in civil
war. In the midst of the strife the republic passed away, and only the
coming of the imperial power of the Caesars perpetuated Roman
institutions.

_Rome Becomes a Dominant City_.--In all of this struggle at home and
abroad, foreign conquest led to the establishment of Rome as the
central city. The constitution of Rome was the typical constitution
for all provincial cities, and from this one centre all provinces were
ruled. No example heretofore had existed of the centralization of
government similar to this. The overlordship of the Persians was only
for the purpose of collecting tribute; there was little attempt to
carry abroad the Persian institutions or to amalgamate the conquered
provinces in one great homogeneous nation.

The empire of Athens was but a temporary hegemony over tributary
states. But the Roman government conquered and absorbed. Wherever
went the Roman arms, there the Roman laws and the Roman government
followed; there followed the Roman language, architecture, art,
institutions, and civilization. Great highways passed from the Eternal
City to all parts of the territory, binding together the separate
elements of {258} national life, and levelling down the barriers
between all nations. Every colony planted by Rome in the new provinces
was a type of the old Roman life, and the provincial government
everywhere became the type of this central city. Here was reached a
state in the development of government which no nation had hitherto
attained--the dominant city and the rule of a mighty empire from
central authority.

_The Development of Government_.--The r