Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/73

 Polished, gleaming metal, straight ranks and files of soldiery, shouting centurions, aristocratic Imperial officers—the harsh, precise machine mowed down all that stood in its path. Efficiency invaded the wilderness, for the first time—but not the last. The Britons were driven back, or enslaved, or carried off to Italy. Camps were laid out, their sites chosen scientifically. Bridges spanned the streams. Roads, hard as metal, white as marble, straight as spear-shafts, pierced through virgin woodlands.

The camps grew into towns, where people lived the orderly, virtuous lives of pioneers extending the frontiers of their nation. A precise language, with neatly interlocking combinations of long and short vowels and consonants, beautifully inflected, prevailed—a language which contained miraculous words that represented not only things and actions but generalized concepts. Self-consciousness and rigid logical thinking sought, with temporary success, to impress the face of the island, upon which time had thus far written but a shallow story, when all was told.

Justice was administered, business methods were ap plied to human intercourse. Regulated amusements provided controllable outlets for spirits that naturally and periodically craved excitement and stimulation. Amphitheatres were dug out of the verdant hillsides. Here were staged races, combats, pompous solemn processionals, perhaps even the comedies of Plautus and the tragedies of Seneca. Two miles—two thousand Roman paces—north of Mai Dun, sprang up the capital city of the Imperial province.