the utter extermination of one of the
parties, and left behind it a legacy of hatred and persecution that has
made the history of modern Spain a dismal record of shame and disaster.
[Sidenote: The Oriental method of nation-making]

In this first method of nation-making, then, which we may call the
Oriental method, one now sees but little to commend. It was better than
savagery, and for a long time no more efficient method was possible,
but the leading peoples of the world have long since outgrown it; and
although the resulting form of political government is the oldest we
know and is not yet extinct, it nevertheless has not the elements
of permanence. Sooner or later it will disappear, as savagery is
disappearing, as the rudest types of inchoate human society have
disappeared.

The second method by which nations have been made may be called
the Roman method; and we may briefly describe it as _conquest with
incorporation, but without representation_. The secret of Rome's
wonderful strength lay in the fact that she incorporated the vanquished
peoples into her own body politic. In the early time there was a fusion
of tribes going on in Latium, which, if it had gone no further, would
have been similar to the early fusion of Ionic tribes in Attika or of
Iranian tribes in Media. But whereas everywhere else this political
fusion soon stopped, in the Roman world it went on. One after another
Italian tribes and Italian towns were not merely overcome but admitted
to a share in the political rights and privileges of the victors. By the
time this had gone on until the whole Italian peninsula was consolidated
under the headship of Rome, the result was a power incomparably greater
than any other that the world had yet seen. Never before had so many
people been brought under one government without making slaves of most
of them. Liberty had existed before, whether in barbaric tribes or
in Greek cities. Union had existed before, in Assyrian or Persian
despotisms. Now liberty and union were for the first time joined
together, with consequences enduring and stupendous. The whole
Mediterranean world was brought under one government; ancient barriers
of religion, speech, and custom were overthrown in every direction; and
innumerable barbarian tribes, from the Alps to the wilds of northern
Britain, from the Bay of Biscay to the Carpathian mountains, were more
or less completely transformed into Roman citizens, protected by Roman
law, and s