condemned it as we condemn that of his victim. Something of
interest and respect would have mingled with their
disapprobation. The readiness of the traitor's wit, the clearness
of his judgment, the skill with which he penetrates the
dispositions of others and conceals his own, would have ensured
to him a certain portion of their esteem.

So wide was the difference between the Italians and their
neighbours. A similar difference existed between the Greeks of
the second century before Christ, and their masters the Romans.
The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to their
engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feelings, were,
at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With the
vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, and
the literature of the Western world. In poetry, in philosophy, in
painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they had no rivals.
Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, their
invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane; but of
courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. Every
rude centurion consoled himself for his intellectual inferiority,
by remarking that knowledge and taste seemed only to make men
atheists, cowards, and slaves. The distinction long continued to
be strongly marked, and furnished an admirable subject for the
fierce sarcasms of Juvenal.

The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was the Greek of the time
of Juvenal and the Greek of the time of Pericles, joined in one.
Like the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and mean. But,
like the latter, he had a country. Its independence and
prosperity were dear to him. If his character were degraded by