agricultural and military Rome. Who would think of framing such a
constitution, say, for one of the rural districts of France?

Other indications of the real character of the prehistoric Rome might be
mentioned. The preponderance of the infantry and the comparative
weakness of the cavalry is an almost certain sign of democracy, and of
the social state in which democracy takes its birth--at least in the
case of a country which did not, like Arcadia or Switzerland, preclude
by its nature the growth of a cavalry force, but on the contrary was
rather favourable to it. Nor would it be easy to account for the strong
feeling of attachment to the city which led to its restoration when it
had been destroyed by the Gauls, and defeated the project of a migration
to Veii, if Rome was nothing but a collection of miserable huts, the
abodes of a tribe of marauders. We have, moreover, the actual traces of
an industrial organization in the existence of certain guilds of
artisans, which may have been more important at first than they were
when the military spirit had become thoroughly ascendant.

Of course when Rome had once been drawn into the career of conquest, the
ascendency of the military spirit would be complete; war, and the
organization of territories acquired in war, would then become the great
occupation of her leading citizens; industry and commerce would fall
into disesteem, and be deemed unworthy of the members of the imperial
race. Carthage would no doubt have undergone a similar change of
character, had the policy which was carried to its greatest height by
the aspiring house of Barcas succeeded in converting her from a trading
city into the capital of a great military empire. So would Venice, had
she been able to carry on her system of conquest in the Levant and of
territorial aggrandisement on the Italian mainland. The career of Venice
was arrested by the League of Cambray. On Carthage the policy of