ripen into a very human passion.

The vital difference between Vergil's treatment of the theme and
Apollonius' may be traced to the difference between the Roman and the
Greek family. Into Italy as into Greece had come, many centuries before,
hordes of Indo-European migrants from the Danubian region who had carried
into the South the wholesome family customs of the North, the very
customs indeed out of which the transalpine literature of medieval
chivalry later blossomed.

In Greece those social customs--still recognizable in Homer and the early
mythology--had in the sixth century been overwhelmed by a back-flow of
Aegean society, when the northern aristocracy was compelled to surrender
to the native element which constituted the backbone of the democracy.
With the re-emergence of the Aegean society, in which woman was relegated
to a menial position, the possibility of a genuine romantic literature
naturally came to an end.

At Rome there was no such cataclysm during the centuries of the Republic.
Here the old stock though somewhat mixed with Etruscans, survived. The
ancient aristocracy retained its dominant position in the state and
society, and its mores even penetrated downward. They were not stifled
by new southern customs welling up from below, at least not until the
plebeian element won the support of the founders of the empire, and
finally overwhelmed the nobility. At Rome during the Republic there was
no question of social inequality between the sexes, for though in law the
patriarchal clan-system, imposed by the exigencies of a migrating group,
made the father of the family responsible for civil order, no inferences
were drawn to the detriment of the mother's position in the household.
Nepos once aptly remarked: "Many things are considered entirely proper