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 132 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

nations. In this way great differences in customs and religion were gradually brought to consciousness. The influx of Greeks into Rome in the centuries immediately preceding our era no doubt contributed largely toward the breaking up of primitive Roman morality. It is customary to regard the vice and luxury that reigned in Rome during the times of the foreign conquests as the cause of the decadence in its morals. It would be more correct to regard it merely as a concomitant. They fell an easy prey to the vices of conquest because their primitive social structure, the real basis of their morality, was already under- mined. The old standards of conduct had given way, and the people as a whole were left in that state of suspense so closely akin to emotionalism. They had lost faith in the old, and there was as yet nothing to take its place. With the decay of primi- tive standards of conduct the primitive systems of control also fell away. Thus it is not strange that in the time of the empire the conduct of the people was often marked by wild caprice. While this state of mind did not necessarily seek expression in games and combats, the fact that they met with such popular favor and were indulged in to such excess when they were offered, indicates that there was then at least a state of mind ready for just such expression.

Another evidence that they were fast breaking with the old was the fact that even national feeling was declining, or perhaps it was only the tribal feeling that was losing its hold, no real national sentiment having as yet ever existed. Lecky says in his History of European Morals that "the period between Panastius and Constantine exhibited an irresistible tendency to cosmopolitanism. The convergence, when we consider the num- ber, force, and harmony of the influences that composed it, is indeed unexampled in history. The movement extended to all the fields of religion, philosophy, political, industrial, and domes- tic life. The character of the people was completely trans- formed, the landmarks of all its institutions were removed, and the whole principle of its organization reversed. It would be impossible to find a more striking example of the manner in which events govern character, destroying old habits and associa-