Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Life and Letters in the Fourth Century If Rome's yoke was heavy (and at times it weighed very heavily on some unlucky province), still hardly any attempt was made to throw it off. Rome had not as a rule to dread rebellion when once the charm of a hereditary dynasty was broken. Almost the sole exception is the Jewish people, a race made self-conscious by its own prophets, by its Babylonian captivity and by the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes and his like. Here the Roman met his match, and here was the one people to impose its will upon him. While everywhere the Roman government was sensitive to local peculiarities of administration and religion and careful to respect them where it was possible not to alter them, with the Jew special terms had to be made wherever he was. His Sabbath, his syna gogue, his temple dues, the jurisdiction of his elders were all conceded to him; but even so Rome had to face rebellion after rebellion, and when that stage was past there still survived the Jewish riot in Alexandria. Here alone Rome failed, but with every other race once mistress she was mistress for ever, making all peoples equal and members one of another under her sway. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.