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The Historians' History of the World: The early Roman empire
The Historians' History of the World The early Roman empire Author:Henry Smith Williams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XXIX. THE EMPIRE AND THE PROVINCES When Augustus entered upon secure possession of absolute power, the Roman Empire included the fairest and most... more » famous lands on the face of the globe and all the civilised peoples of the ancient world found a place in its ample bosom. It extended from the ocean on the west to the Euphrates, from the Danube and the Rhine to the cataracts of the Nile and the deserts of Africa and Arabia. And although, in the first decades of imperial rule, a few tribes within its huge circumference had not completely assimilated the system of Roman civilisation and law; although in the Alps and Pyrenees, on the lower Danube and in the inaccessible gorges of the Taurus some warlike races retained their savage freedom and did not stoop their necks to the rods and axes of Rome, the mighty mistress of the world — they offered but a futile defiance, better fitted to assert and exercise the martial vigour of the legions than to inspire the masters of the world with dread or set bounds to their dominion. The wars which Augustus or his legates waged in the Cantabrian Mountains of northwestern Spain, in the Alps and the wooded hills of Dalmatia, merely served to consolidate the empire and strengthen its frontiers, and gave the imperial ruler an opportunity of renewing the martial feats and triumphs of the republic. The Spanish mountaineers were transplanted to the plains and constrained to conduct themselves peaceably. Deprived of their savage liberty, they accustomed themselves to agriculture and social life; and the Spanish cities, endowed with privileges and connected by highroads, soon became seats of Roman culture and spheres of active influence in trade and commerce. The products of the soil, the largess of the sea, the fruits of industry — oil and w...« less