Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/355

XI of the Empire; a literature quite distinct from that of the vigorous youth of the City-State, when thought and action were more completely in harmony, and creative power more natural and spontaneous. The literature of the Empire is neither civic nor national; it has not the freshness and originality which civic or national life alone can give. But it reflects the life and thought of a Græco-Roman age, and whether it be Greek or Roman, the traces of ancient nationality are now merged in the consciousness of a new and cosmopolitan era. Lastly, the religious history of the Empire offers a vast field of study which has as yet been only half explored. Here, more clearly perhaps than elsewhere, we may be able to trace the gradual dissolution of the older forms of thought and life. The intensely local character of the religion of the City-State now gives place to a new religion of the world. The old city-worships, — the divine inhabitants of each individual city, — die out slowly but surely; at first, under the influence of the all-pervading worship of the Cæsars, and later, under the irresistible spell of a new religion, of which the inspiring principle was the brotherhood of all men.

The Roman Empire was at last broken up; it had its own inherent weaknesses, which increased as time went on, and rendered it incapable of further resistance to the flood of barbarism which had long been surging on its frontiers. But it had accomplished its work. Had the northern peoples swept over the Empire in the last century