Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/25

 held together in peace many nations, who, but for that constraint, would, as their previous and subsequent history shows, have been arrayed against each other, in contests, destructive alike of the happiness of the contending parties and the comfort of their neighbors. The mighty force of Roman genius had overcome the thousand barriers which nature and art had reared between the different nations of the three continents in which it ruled, and the passage from one end of that vast empire to the other, was without any hindrance to those who traveled on errands of peace. The bloody strife which once distracted the tribes of Gaul, Germany and Britain, had rendered those grand sections of Europe impassable, and shut up each paltry tribe within a narrow boundary, which could never be crossed but with fire and sword. The deadly and furious contests among the nations of South-western Asia and South-eastern Europe, had long discouraged the philosophical and commercial enterprise, once of old so rife and free among them, and offered a serious hindrance to the traveler, whether journeying for information or trade; thus greatly checking the spread of knowledge, and limiting each nation, in a great measure, to its own resources in science and art. The Roman conquest, burying in one wide tomb all the jealousies and strifes of aspiring national ambition, thus put an end at once to all these causes of separation; it brought long-divided nations into close union and acquaintance, and produced a more extensive and equal diffusion of knowledge, as well as greater facilities for commercial intercourse, than had ever been enjoyed before. The rapid result of the conquerors' policy was the consolidation of the various nations of that vast empire into one people,—peaceful, prosperous, and for the most part protected in their personal and domestic rights. The savage was tamed, the wanderers were reclaimed from the forest, which fell before the march of civilization, or from the desert, which soon rejoiced and blossomed under the mighty beneficence of Roman power.

The fierce Gaul forsook his savage hut and dress together, robing himself in the graceful toga of the Roman citizen, or the light tunic of the colonial cultivator, and reared his solid and lofty dwelling in clustering cities or villages, whose deep laid foundations yet endure, in lasting testimony of the nature of Roman conquest and civilization. Under his Roman rulers and patrons, he raised piles of art, unequaled in grandeur, beauty and durability, by any similar works in the world. Aqueducts and