he laws.
From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all the natives
of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial distinctions were
obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into one great nation, united
by language, manners, and civil institutions, and equal to the weight of
a powerful empire. The republic gloried in her generous policy, and was
frequently rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had
she always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families
within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been
deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of
Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call himself
an Apulian or a Lucanian; it was in Padua that an historian was found
worthy to record the majestic series of Roman victories. The patriot
family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum; and the little town of
Arpinum claimed the double honor of producing Marius and Cicero, the
former of whom deserved, after Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the
Third Founder of Rome; and the latter, after saving his country from the
designs of Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of
eloquence.

The provinces of the empire (as they have been described in the
preceding chapter) were destitute of any public force, or constitutional
freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, and in Gaul, it was the first care
of the senate to dissolve those dangerous confederacies, which taught
mankind that, as the Roman arms prevailed by division, they might be
resisted by union. Those princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude
or generosity permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were
dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had per formed their
appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations.
The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome
were rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into real
servitude. The public authority was every where exercised by the
ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that authority
was absolute, and without control. But the same salutary maxims of
government, which had secured the peace and obedience of Italy were
extended to the most distant conquests. A nation of Romans was gradually
formed in the provinces, by the double expedient of introducing
colonies, and of admitting the most faithful and deserving of the
provincials to the freedom of Rome.