reat chain of communications ran in a
direct line from city to city, and in its construction the Roman
engineers snowed little respect for the obstacles, either of nature or
of private property. Mountains were perforated and bold arches thrown
over the broadest and most rapid streams. The middle part of the road,
raised into a terrace which commanded the adjacent country, consisted of
several strata of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with granite
or large stones. Distances were accurately computed by milestones, and
the establishment of post-houses, at a distance of five or six miles,
enabled a citizen to travel with ease a hundred miles a day along the
Roman roads.

This freedom of intercourse, which was established throughout the Roman
world, while it extended the vices, diffused likewise the improvements
of social life. Rude barbarians of Gaul laid aside their arms for the
more peaceful pursuits of agriculture. The cultivation of the earth
produced abundance in every portion of the empire, and accidental
scarcity in any single province was immediately relieved by the
plentifulness of its more fortunate neighbours. Since the productions of
nature are the materials of art, this flourishing condition of
agriculture laid the foundation of manufactures, which provided the
luxurious Roman with those refinements of conveniency, of elegance, and
of splendour which his tastes demanded. Commerce flourished, and the
products of Egypt and the East were poured out in the lap of Rome.

Though there still existed within the body of the Roman Empire an
unhappy condition of men who endured the weight, without sharing the
benefits of society, the position of a slave was greatly improved in the
progress of Roman development. The power of life and death was taken
from his master's hands and vested in the magistrate, to whom he had a
right to appeal against intolerable treatment. These magistrates
exercised the authority of the emperor and the senate in every quarter
of the empire, inflexibly maintaining in their administration, as in the
case of military government, the use of the Latin tongue. Greek was the
natural idiom of science, Latin that of government.

_II.--The Seeds of Dissolution_

But while Roman society persisted in a state of peaceful security, it
already contained within itself the seeds of dissolution. The long peace
and uniform government of the Romans introduced a slow and secret poison
into the vitals