Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/137

 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 125 NOTES The Imperial Republic. Rome had made herself an Imperial city state in Italy and Sicily, and had overthrown her rival in the west, Carthage. Now she suddenly expanded into a conquering World Power. But the system of city government, even modified as it had been in Italy, was inadequate to the strain of extended empire which tended to convert successful commanders into masters instead of servants of the republic, while it had a corrupting effect on the governors of remote and wealthy provinces. A govern- ment founded on Militarism was necessary to the control of the extended empire over subject peoples, and Militarism required a supreme controller of the armies — that is, an absolute monarchy. Until this was brought about, the supreme government became more and more unstable. The creation of the new system was the work of Julius Caesar, though it was not given permanent shape till the end of the struggle between Anthony and Octavius. Peoples of Western Europe. Before the coming of the Celts, it is probable that most of the races inhabiting Spain, France, and our islands belonged to one Pre-Aryan group called the Iberian. When the Celts or Gauls came, they absorbed the Iberians without exterminating them in the British Isles and in France ; but in Spain the Iberian element predominated over the Celtic. The Punic wars caused Spain to be the first Latinised by Roman conquest. France or Gaul was conquered by Julius Caesar, and also became rapidly Latinised. Across the channel, the Romans a century later con- quered what we now call England (not Scotland or Ireland), but were satisfied with a military occupation ; the people were never thoroughly Latinised, and after the withdrawal of the legions at the beginning of the fifth century, the Latin veneer disappeared. The first incursion of the next great Aryan division, the Teutones or Germans, was checked by Marius ; and for four centuries these races were held back behind the Danube and the Rhine. Then the Vandals and Goths broke through the barrier and established them- selves in the south of France, in Spain, and in Italy. Here, however, the people were so thoroughly Latinised that they Latinised the invaders, and also the later Teutonic groups of Franks, Burgundians, and Lombards ; the Gallic or Iberian elements predominated among the people at large, and the popular languages became not German modified by Latin but Latin modified by German.