an-African civilizations.

CHAPTER TWO

ROME'S OUTSTANDING EXPERIMENT

Among the many attempts to make the institutions and practices of
civilization promote human welfare, Roman civilization deserves a very
high rating. First, it was located in the eastern Mediterranean area,
the home-site of so many civilizations. Second, it was part and parcel
of a prolonged period of attempts by Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites,
Babylonians, Mycaenians, Phoenicians and others in the area to set up
successful empires and to play the lead role in building a civilization
that would be more or less permanent. Third, the Romans seemed to have
the hardiness, adaptability, persistence and capacity for
self-discipline necessary to carry such a long term project to a
successful conclusion. Among the widely varied human groups occupying
the eastern Mediterranean area between 1000 B.C. and 1000 A.D., the
Romans seem to have been well qualified to win the laurel crown.

Western civilization is an incomplete experiment. Its outcome remains
uncertain. Its future still hangs in the insecure balance between
construction and destruction, between life and extinction. It is "our"
civilization in a very real sense. It was developed by our forebears. We
live as part of its complex of ideas, practices, techniques,
institutions. Since we are in it and of it, it is difficult for us
humans to judge it objectively.

Roman civilization, on the contrary, is a completed experiment, one that
came into being, developed over several centuries, attained a zenith of
wealth and power, then sank gradually from sight, until it lived only as
a part of history. A study of Roman civilization has two advantages.
First, its life cycle has been completed. Second, it is close enough to
us in history and its records are so numerous and so well preserved that
we can form a fairly accurate picture of its structure and its
functions. It was written up extensively by the Romans themselves, by
their Greek and other contemporaries and by a host of scholars and
students; since the break-up of Roman civilization as a political,
economic and cultural force in world affairs.

Rome's experiment is sometimes called Graeco-Roman civilization because
Greece and Italy were close geographical neighbors and also because
Greek culture, which reached its zenith by 500 B.C. and was closely
paralleled by the rise of Roman culture, had a profound effect in
determining the total charact