CHAPTER TWO

ROME'S OUTSTANDING EXPERIMENT


Among the many attempts to make the institutions and practices of
civilization promote human welfare, Roman civilization deserves a very
high rating. First, it was located in the eastern Mediterranean area,
the home-site of so many civilizations. Second, it was part and parcel
of a prolonged period of attempts by Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites,
Babylonians, Mycaenians, Phoenicians and others in the area to set up
successful empires and to play the lead role in building a civilization
that would be more or less permanent. Third, the Romans seemed to have
the hardiness, adaptability, persistence and capacity for
self-discipline necessary to carry such a long term project to a
successful conclusion. Among the widely varied human groups occupying
the eastern Mediterranean area between 1000 B.C. and 1000 A.D., the
Romans seem to have been well qualified to win the laurel crown.

Western civilization is an incomplete experiment. Its outcome remains
uncertain. Its future still hangs in the insecure balance between
construction and destruction, between life and extinction. It is "our"
civilization in a very real sense. It was developed by our forebears. We
live as part of its complex of ideas, practices, techniques,
institutions. Since we are in it and of it, it is difficult for us
humans to judge it objectively.

Roman civilization, on the contrary, is a completed experiment, one that
came into being, developed over several centuries, attained a zenith of
wealth and power, then sank gradually from sight, until it lived only as