Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/43

 n] THE PASSING OF THE ANTIQUE MAN 25 with those who dwelt in a city which was becoming the world's centre of artistic and literary life, besides being the fountain-head of political power. Rome set the fashion for at least the Latin world, and men of Africa and Spain and Gaul were influenced by the urbane character of Romans whose power held the world, and whose speech and literature were becoming the speech and literature of the world's western half. And all these peoples who affected Roman fashions, read Latin literature, and used the Latin tongue, were becoming Roman-minded, stamped with the genius of Rome ; their natures took the impress of Rome's chief intellectual attainments, especially of her oratory and her law. The Roman Law, that most distinctive origi- nal creation of the Roman people, was an ever working influence upon the personalities of its creators. The Roman was always a legal-minded man, one whose conceptions naturally framed themselves in categories of the law. The quality of legal-mindedness passes into the entire Latin world, just as much as the rhet- orical study of Latin literature. It will show itself in the works of Christian Fathers as markedly as in pagan writings. Thus, despite the influence of Hellenism, many dis- tinctive traits of Roman character remained ; its dig- nity, its stanchness, and its legal-mindedness, its love of order, of civic concordia which was the true Roman analogue of the more philosophic Greek conception of apfioviu. The Greeks themselves were also undergoing change. The classic strenuousness had gradually passed from the Greek intellect and character. The great qualities