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Show OUR BOYS' FUTURE? As long as Rome and Jtaly were respected as the center of government, a national spirit Was preserved by the ancient, and insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The principal commands of the army were filled by men who had received a liberal education, were well instructed in the advantages ad-vantages of laws and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps, through the regular succession of civil and military honors. To their influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial history. lint when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was tramped down by Caracalla, the separation of professions profes-sions gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone qualified to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was abandoned to the peasants and barbarians bar-barians of the frontiers, who knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war, no civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With bloody hands, savage manners, man-ners, and desperate resolutions, they sometimes guarded, but of tenor subverted, the throne of the emporers. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. |