A History of the Roman World 753 to 146 BC
The two crowning achievements wrought by the Roman people during the period covered by this volume were the unification of Italy and the founding of an overseas empire. The Greeks had revealed aspects of the spirit of man before undreamt of; the Romans could only gaze up at many of the peaks that their predecessors had scaled and show their admiration by a humble imitation and by passing on the legacy to later generations. But in one sphere the Greeks of the city-state, despite their genius, had failed: their rejection of permanent co-operation among themselves at length proved fatal, and noble strivings after independence often degenerated into petty bickering and quarrels. But the peculiar genius of the Roman people, their predilection for law and order, and their powers of organization and administration, unlocked the doors at which the Greeks had hammered in vain : a city-state proved itself able to weld the various peoples of a country into a nation and to govern an empire. In the