OCR Rendition - approximate

318 SIR H. B. F RERE.-On the Laws affecting the also clear. But this result did not invariably follow. It appears to have been a usual policy of the Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Babylonians, as well as the Medes and Persians, to transplant whole colonies of one conquered race and settle them in the territory of another subject people-sometimes probably the colonies thus introduced were superior in civilization to those people amongst whom they were settled, and acted as civilizing military colonies-but the main purpose of the transfer was apparently simply to break up national ties-and to fuse the whole population of the empire into one submissive whole. Occasionally, on the other hand, the less civilized race got the better of the civilized-and effected something more than a change of dynasty though they were sometimes absorbed into the conquered race. This seems more than once to have happened in Assyria and Babylonia, and the Medes and Persians were apparently far less civilized than the people they conquered. In Egypt the Hyksos would appear to have been an uncivilized race as compared with the Egyptians-but in all these cases we know too little of the details of history to judge of the precise action of the one race upon the other. Nor is much to be learned from the earlier history of Greece. That the Hellenic races, which achieved so rapidly a civilization in some respects unsurpassed as yet by any human family, were from the earliest times of authentic history always in contact with less civilized races, is clear, and also that the Hellenes were themselves inferior in civilization to the Phoenicians and Egyptians, the Assyrians, and other neighbours to the south-east and south of the Mediterranean-and drew from them much which was essential to Greek culture in its best time. But here, again, of the definite mode of action we know little. Much more is to be learnt from the Roman history of every age. The tribes which formed the original constituent parts of the early Roman State were apparently in a state of civilization, much less advanced than their older neighbours, the Etruscans, who were gradually absorbed into the Roman commonwealth, and probably contributed more than any other single race to mould the Roman civilization of later days. It is clear that, from the first, absorption and assimilation, and not extermination, was the usual, and apparently the chosen result of Roman conquest. The aim was extension of empire -not mere triumph over a national rival. Whether the people conquered were Jews or Egyptians or other possessors of an ancient civilization-or Gauls and Britons in a state of extreme barbarism-the object was always the same, though it might require very different and even opposite treatnient to attain it. In the former case, when a civilized kingdom was subdued, steps