Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/205

 Extension of Roman Dominion and its Results 141 conducted by Greeks. A Latin translation of Homer was often used as a textbook, and in this way Roman children learned something of the legends of Troy and of the wily Odysseus. Roman writers also set down the picturesque legends of early Rome and of its founding by Romulus and Remus. A Roman general brought back the books collected by the Macedonian king and founded the first private library in Rome. Wealthy and cultivated Romans now began to provide special rooms in their houses for books, and they often read and spoke Greek almost as well as Latin. II. SIGNS OF DEGENERATION IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 220. Gladiators and Races. Some of the old-fashioned Romans were greatly worried by the new luxury. Laws were passed to check it, but they amounted to little. During the Carthaginian wars there had been introduced an old Etruscan custom of single combats between condemned criminals or slaves, who fought to honor the funeral of some great Roman. These fighters came to be called "swordsmen" (gladiators, from a Latin word gladius, meaning " sword"). Officials in charge of the various public feasts, without waiting for a funeral, used to arrange a long program of such combats, sure of pleasing the people, gaining their votes, and thus securing election to higher offices. These barbarous and bloody spectacles took place in a great stone structure called an amphitheater. Combats between gladiators and wild beasts were finally introduced. The Romans also began to build enormous race tracks for chariot races (called circuses), surrounded by seats for vast numbers of spectators. 221. Political Corruption. The Roman politician now sought office chiefly with the hope of finally gaining the governorship of a province. There he might hope to retrieve his campaign expenses and make himself rich for life. The aspirant to office naturally took advantage of the habit that had grown up of distributing grain and bread among the poorer people, and sought, .as the expression was", to make himself solid with the voters by means of "bread and circuses." There appears also to have been a great