Arguto coniunx percurrit pectine telas[419].
Friendship among men, and even the social friendliness which makes life more pleasant and manners more humane, were ranked among the virtues by Greek philosophy; and the first is treated by Aristotle, not only as a single virtue, but as the condition under which all virtue can best be realised: but natural affection is regarded as a mere instinct, and the duties of family life do not fall under any of those conditions with which ethical philosophy concerns itself. On the other hand, the legendary history of the early Republic, and many great examples, in the midst of the corruption of the later Republic and of the Empire, prove that the ideal of domestic virtue and affection among the Romans was no mere passing fancy or dream of an age of primitive innocence, but was in harmony with the national conscience throughout the whole course of their history.
In devotion to the good of the State no superiority can be claimed for the Romans over the Athenians of the times of Cleisthenes, Themistocles, and Pericles. And while each people, in its best days, was equally ready to serve the Republic in war and by the performance of public duties, and while the Roman perhaps more than the Athenian regarded the labour of his hands as a service due from him[420], the Athenian freely gave the higher energy of his genius to make the life of his fellow-citizens brighter and nobler. And it is the peculiar glory of the Athenians of the fifth century B.C.,—the glory claimed for them [pg 275]in one of the speeches attributed to their great Statesman by their great Historian,—that they combined this devotion to the common good with a high development of all personal excellence. But in Athens this union of national and individual energy and virtue was of very brief duration. On the other hand, the lasting greatness of the Roman Commonwealth was purchased by the sacrifice of the energies and accomplishments which add to the grace and enjoyment of individual existence. The greatness and permanence of the race, not the varied development of the individual, was the object aimed at and attained in the vigorous prime of the Roman Republic[421].
If this aspect of national life is not directly brought before us by Virgil in the Georgics, it is brought into strong light in the representation of his mimic commonwealth—the
Mores et studia et populos et proelia[422]
of the community of bees. It scarcely needs the reminder of
ipsae regem parvosque Quirites
Sufficiunt[423]
to convince us that, in this representation of an industrious and warlike community, earnest in labour from the love of the objects on which it was bestowed and from pride in its results—
Tantus amor florum et generandi gloria mellis[424],—