| Show iia amsi RISE AND DOWNFALL THE OF AND SOCIAL the lecture by B W darls jr pleasant grove wednesday jan rome grew up and run parallel with greece tho gatins advancing north of tho black sea and up the danube valley passing over tho alps in search of homes and disregarding the story of romelus the reputed founder it was about B 0 that home was founded A wall was thrown around the city sowers and aqueducts wore built B C which still exist and of the greatness of the romans nothing in years di this wonderful masonry shows the comins had grown out of the family looms up in somewhat more importance than in greece more compact and shows the growth of the Roman people the relation s between husband and wife and the state the power of the husband was exceptionable absolute oven to life and death and only restrained by the people marriage was regarded as a civil contract a sort of compulsion hr the state in other words a law against bachelors and a man could not bo a martician part ician unless he was married the son stepped into hia fathers shoes at the batters lat death and the female cut off her gend when she married and became the daughter of her husbands father so that she related solely to those who bore her husbands name never returning to the family from which she sprang each greek had but one name but the romans had an individual as well as a family name cur own habit accra ing from them in regard to government we may divide it into three classes those having great power without responsibility a the russians Eus those having great power with strict responsibility as the english probably and those of limited power with accountability as the united states which is one of the best limited first by the people congress beidl limited by the u court and the constitution the roman government adopted the first of these classes in the early his atory but soon had a tendency to lapse into the second form the kings becoming oppressive and the power being transformed to consuls the next great power was the senate by far the most important of the roman government being an assembly of old men in number appointed for life the senate always being held up to the best of toen nothing hi history lias compared with roman senate for steadfastness and general ability is it brought the best men in and kept them there and it was this that gave to home her great name society was organized on the basis of wealth the knights being organized into a unit and the bais of their wealth being about twenty jerger twenty yoke of cattle to their land and they went to battle always mount cd men did not get pay for being inthe senate and as it was constantly in session it must of necessity have been made up of aristocratic society each tribe voted as a unit being a purely democratic movement and each bill had to pass through the senate this tribal assembly was like our towns coming together to vote relying upon their leaders for guidance the office of the tribune under the boman conati aution was a sort of judge for the of standing between the tribes an aristocratic function calling out 1 forbid when the law was not to bo executed the veto power had ita origin in this way tho clonan government was rather men having power in proportion to their wealth the roman citizen ws exempt from taxation it was a great thing then to be a boman citizen which at first yas acquired by adoption but subsequently by buying their way in slavery abounded here not so general as in greece but all mental work was done by them the citizen therefore hod every advantage no taxes to pay everything free consequently wealth increased there greater than a in any other nation except perhaps in alie united states in the last awen ty five years debts were forgiven and the poor cried as now accumulation of property in the hands of the few alio seeds flown then B C existing today to day and was an element of weakness that noted their fall the great distinction between classes taxes all upon the poor and no political privileges being given or enjoyed by the eans in the second place there was tho gravitation of the lands in the hands of the few and the formation of states the state to conciliate the lower classics being obliged to support the poor not only to give bread abut amusements in the atre the advancement of tho romans lina beon shown in many way but chak of their military career was por leaps the most remarkable their conquests from to B 0 not bo ing sot abid as steady consisting in organizing territories and linking ahem to the great republic after wards the empire and extending their civilization wherever they wont these colonies free municipalities but under the general control of tho central government patricians being sent out to control them giving tho colonists coloni ste municipal rights but not political something like the condition of day the theory of the romans was that the defeated were to be reduced theyon ly reduced those to menial servitude tho were ill behaved at the closer i as iss i r SS i y of the third punic war they selected fifty thousand people as slaves and at the conquest ot macedon ono hundred and fifty thousand pirates were sold they hn 1 reat slave markets und slave could bo bought for sixty civo to ninety cents each quite a dif ferena to aho slave trade in the united states whore they would sell from fifty to live hundred dollars in tho islan dot dolas it is related that ten thousand slaves were sold in one day put up in lots to jobbers who would then wholesale them to merchants who in turn retailed them marketing in human life like so many beasts sending them into every part of the then civilized world AJ late as 50 B 0 tho number of slaves was greuter than in any other time one man would own as many as twenty thousand traves and there was a case where the roaster died a violent death and slaves were put to death for not protecting their master this system degraded society disastrous results encouraging indolence and aided by the italian climate society fell away civil strife arose brother murdered brother until there was hardly a house that was free from slaughter wives refused to shelter husbands and under this condition of anarchy they were ready to receive a great man when he came the poor and the rich struggling for money the greatest curse toJ lome but caesar saved it as no other man could the people preferring tyranny to anarchy it was the downfall of the republic and the organization of the provincial government the division taking place between caesar and campey ahen the latter died the government gradually went into one power agustus succeeding caesar then came a reign of peace on earth and good will to roan the messiah had come the provincial government under the power of the empire had a tendency towards remarkable advancement and great prosperity but is was local and when the government was attached by outward forces the empire did not assist the senate sent out men to dominate known as ley pro vicia or law of the the province and as a method of communicating they gathered in cities and made roads leading from the towns into como graded as a railroad and covered with blocks of stone or gravel two or alco feet thick so solid that roads two thousand years old are still good the first being the adean way leading south from rome a great thoroughfare ough fare or military road they encouraged uniting or binding them together in the second place by granting municipal rights and an inducement to royalty as also some political rights as a reward for exceptional loyalty augustus was the first to give sealed ballote doing away with the necessity of going to borne to vole as formerly the fall cf the boman empire is considered as a sort of phenomena as she seemed to sit down amidst the pillage of the barbarian hordes from the north who were aryans and differed from the romans simply because they came in contact with a rigorous temperature their natures gradually growing different as they lived less out of doors it was the climate that made slavery preferable in the south and lead to its abolishment first in the north they were druies druids in their ing tha sun as a source of warmth the earth for fertility or as a source of wealth and the sword that killed their priests h ad all power but at the encroach abent of christianity these priests were put to death and were substituted by those of a now persuasion under military control groat changes were taking place in the fifth century society being broken up nomadic habits were instilled into them causing them to move about for the purpose of bettering their condition and coming in contact with the corrupting boman habits adopted them to their own like the indians learning the white mans vices it goes to that immoral side of the germs of their nature go into africa where the people only see european sailors and the worst crimes are introduced trod go into china where the merchant goes for grain he is an adapt at cheating so that the experience they gain make them worse and the heathen is still further degraded by the vices of civilization these teutonic tribes were not nomadic until after they had seen some 1 thing of the southern civilization everything tended to show that they had emigrated from tho european mother country their customs and institutions partaking of the early greek institutions they were divided into ranks or elates roughly stated first as nobles second as free men third as freedmen freed men and fourth as slaves their political institutions are important to us as they were carried from there into england the village is the outgrowth of the germans and the now england town meeting had its origin in england the latter getting its spirit from the germans the feudal system waa first known among the Teu tons but it waa not until after the dark agest that political and social institutions became important in england being rapidly developed as america began to bo colonized carrying the free institutions from the mother country for the foundation of our commonwealth |
