of their theological lore and their system of divination, small as the
value of the things borrowed was, the Roman, perhaps, gave an earnest of
the receptiveness which led him afterwards, in his hour of conquest, to
bow to the intellectual ascendency of the conquered Greek, and to become
a propagator of Greek culture, though partly in a Latinized form, more
effectual than Alexander and his Orientalized successors.

In the second place, the geographical circumstances of Rome, combined
with her character, would naturally lead to the foundation of colonies
and of that colonial system which formed a most important and beneficent
part of her empire. We have derived the name colony from Rome; but her
colonies were just what ours are not, military outposts of the empire,
_propugnacula imperii_. Political depletion and provision for needy
citizens were collateral, but it would seem, in early times at least,
secondary objects. Such outposts were the means suggested by Nature,
first of securing those parts of the plain which were beyond the
sheltering range of the city itself, secondly of guarding the outlets of
the hills against the hill tribes, and eventually of holding down the
tribes in the hills themselves. The custody of the passes is especially
marked as an object by the position of many of the early colonies. When
the Roman dominion extended to the north of Italy, the same system was
pursued, in order to guard against incursions from the Alps. A
conquering despot would have planted mere garrisons under military
governors, which would not have been centres of civilization, but
probably of the reverse. The Roman colonies, bearing onwards with them
the civil as well as the military life of the Republic, were, with the
general system of provincial municipalities of which they constituted
the core, to no small extent centres of civilization, though doubtless
they were also to some extent instruments of oppression. "Where the
Roman conquered he dwelt," and the dwelling of the Roman was, on the