he back-country blocks of
New South Wales--our Roman bore no resemblance to them; but say
your Morocco kaid, your desert chieftain from Tunis or Algiers.
Though for long generations he has lost his old-time civilized
attainments, he retains in full his manners, his native dignity,
his wild Saharan grace. But banish him to Paris, and see what
happens. He buys up automobiles,--and poodles,--and astrolabes,
--and patent-leather boots,--and a number of other things he were
much better without. He exchanges his soul for a pass into the
_demi-monde;_ and year by year sees him further sunk into depths
of vulgarism. This is precisely what in a few generations
happened to Rome.

But meanwhile she was at an apex; touched by some few luminous
ideals here and there, and producing some few great gentlemen.
Unprovincial egos; like Scipio Africanus had been edging their
way into Roman incarnation; they were swallows of a still
far-off summer; they stood for Hellenization, and the modification
of Roman rudeness with a little imported culture. Rome had
conquered Magna Graccia, and had seen something there; had felt
a want in herself, and brought in slaves like Livius Andronicus
to supply it. Flamininus himself was really a very great
gentleman: a patrician, type of the best men there were in Rome.
He went to Greece thrilled with generous feelings, as to a sacred
land. When he restored to the Greek cities their freedom,--
handed them back to their own uses and devices, after freeing
them from Philip,--it was with an infinite pride and a high
simplicity. We hear of him overcome in his speech to their
representatives on that occasion, and stopping to control the
lump in his throat: conqueror and master of the whole peninsula
and the islands, he was filled with reverence, as a great
simple-hearted gentleman might be, for the ancient fame and genius
of the peoples at his feet. He and his officers were proud to be
admitted to the Games and initiated at Eleusis. I think this is
the finest chapter in early Roman history. There is the
simplicity, pride, and generosity of the Roman gentleman,
confronted with a culture he was able to admire, but conscious he
did not possess;--and on the other hand the fine flow of Greek
gratitude to the liberator of Greece, in whom the Greeks
recognised that of old time, and which had been so rare in their
own life. At this moment Rome blossomed: a beautiful bloom,
we may say.

But it was a fa