the Popillian Way to Rhegium, the Flaminian Way north-east to Ariminum,
with an extension to Cremona, with the Cassian and Aurelian ways along the
western coast, the rapidity and the completeness with which the Latin
language overspread Italy ceases to be a mystery. A map of Spain or of
France under the Empire, with its network of roads, is equally
illuminating.

The missionaries who carried Roman law, Roman dress, Roman ideas, and the
Latin language first through central, southern, and northern Italy, and
then to the East and the West, were the colonist, the merchant, the
soldier, and the federal official. The central government exempted the
Roman citizen who settled in a provincial town from the local taxes. As
these were very heavy, his advantage over the native was correspondingly
great, and in almost all the large towns in the Empire we find evidence of
the existence of large guilds of Roman traders, tax-collectors, bankers,
and land-owners.[5] When Trajan in his romantic eastern campaign had
penetrated to Ctesiphon, the capital of Parthia, he found Roman merchants
already settled there. Besides the merchants and capitalists who were
engaged in business on their own account in the provinces, there were
thousands of agents for the great Roman corporations scattered through the
Empire. Rome was the money centre of the world, and the great stock
companies organized to lend money, construct public works, collect taxes,
and engage in the shipping trade had their central offices in the capital
whence they sent out their representatives to all parts of the world.

The soldier played as important a part as the merchant in extending the
use of Latin. Tacitus tells us that in the reign of Augustus there were
twenty-five legions stationed in the provinces. If we allow 6,000 men to a
legion, we should have a total of 150,000 Roman soldiers scattered through
the provinces. To these must be added the auxiliary troops which were made