admiration, the envy, and the fear of all nations--so marvelous and
successful that they have the majesty of a providential event. They
cannot be called a mystery, since we see the persistent adaptation of
means to an end. But no other nation ever evinced this uniform military
policy, except for a limited period, or under the stimulus of a
temporary enthusiasm, such as characterized the Saracens and the
Germanic barbarians. The Romans fought when there was no apparent need
of fighting, when their empire already embraced most of the countries
known to the ancients. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, and
the Greeks made magnificent conquests, but their empire was partial and
limited, and soon passed away. The Greeks evinced great military genius,
and the enterprises of Alexander have been regarded as a wonder. But the
Greeks did not fight, as the Romans did, from a fixed purpose to bring
all nations under their sway, and they yielded, in turn, to the Romans.
The Romans were never subdued, but all nations were subdued by them--
even superior races. They erected a universal monarchy, which fell to
pieces by its own weight, when the vices of self-interest had
accomplished their work. They became the prey of barbarians in a very
different sense from that which reduced the ancient empires. They did
not yield to any powerful, warlike neighbor, as the Persians yielded to
the Greeks, but to successive waves of unknown warriors who came in
quest of settlement, and then only when all Roman vigor had fled, and
the whole policy of the empire was changed--when it was the aim of
emperors to conserve old conquests, not make new ones.

[Sidenote: War was a passion with the Romans.]

With the Romans, for a thousand years, war was a passion; and, while it
lasted, it consumed all other passions. It animated statesmen, rulers,
generals, and citizens alike, ever burning, never at rest,--a passion