Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/496

 490 MlIinCIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. they pretended to have, of sacrificing at Olyrapia and at Delplii, were so many means by which the Romans prepared their dominion. Like all the cities, Rome had Ler municipal religion, the source of her patriotism ; but she was the only city which made this religion serve for her aggrandizement. Whilst other cities were isolated by their religion, Rome had the address or the good fortune to employ hers to diaw everything to herself, and to dominate over all. 3. Horn Rome acquired Empire {B. C. 350-140). "Whilst Rome grow thus slowly by the means which religion and the ideas of that age placed at her disposal, a series of social and political changes was taking place in all the cities and in Rome itself, transforming at the same time the governments of men and their ways of thinking. We have already traced this revolution. What is important to remark here is, that it coincides with the great development of the Roman power. These two results, which took place at the same time, were not without influence upon each other. The con- <juests of Rome would not have been so easy if the old municiiial spirit had not been everywhere extinct; and we may also believe that the municipal system would not have fallen so soon if the Roman conquest had not dealt it the final blow. In the midst of the changes which took jilace in in- stitutions, in manners, in religious ideas, and in laws, patriotism itself had changed its nature; and this is one of the events which contributed most to the great prog- ress of Rome. We have described this sentiment as it was in the first ages of the city. It was a part of re- ligion ; men loved their country because they loved its