Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/151

 CHAPTER II

THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN

That a spirit of dominion was implanted in the breasts of those early settlers or refugees who rallied around Romulus, when, about 750, he raised his standard on the Palatine hill, is made plain by the subsequent history of that infant community; and the native daring which first won wives for a colony of outcasts, foreshadowed the career of conquest and empire which eventually attached itself to the Roman name. Contemned, doubtless, and disregarded by their more reputable neighbours as a band of adventurers with nothing to lose, in despair of being respected they determined to make themselves feared; and the original leaven was infused through every further accretion of population, and was entailed as an inheritance on all succeeding