History indicates mysterious laws in the progress of the typical stocks of
the human families; and it shows, in the colonization of the past, how
frail are human calculations in migration and settlement unless based upon
science. "It is not unknown to me," said the Roman soldier, two thousand
years ago, when about to attack the remnant of the army of Brennus, that
had passed over into Asia Minor, and conquered the land by the fierceness
of their attack, and the terror of their name,--"it is not unknown to me,"
said Manlius, "that of all the nations inhabiting Asia, the Gauls have the
highest reputation as soldiers.
"A fierce nation, after overrunning the face of the earth with its arms,
has fixed its abode in the midst of a race of men the gentlest in the
world. Their tall persons; their long, red hair; their vast shields, and
swords of enormous length; their songs also when they are advancing to
action; their yells and dances, and the horrid clashing of their arrows
while they brandish their shields in a peculiar manner practised in their
original country,--all these are circumstances calculated to strike
terror. But let Greeks, and Phrygians, and Carians, who are unaccustomed
to and unacquainted with these things, be frightened by such. The Romans,
long acquainted with Gallic tumults, have learned the emptiness of their
parade. Our forefathers had to deal with genuine native Gauls; but they
are now a degenerate, a mongrel race, and in reality what they are named,
Gallogrecians. Just so is the case of vegetables, the seeds not being so
efficacious for preserving their original constitution as the properties
of the soil and climate in which they may be reared, when changed, are
towards altering it. The Macedonians who settled at Alexandria, in Egypt,
or in Seleucia, or Babylonia, or in any other of their colonies scattered
over the world, have sunk into Syrians, Parthians, or Egyptians.
"What trace do the Tarentines retain of the hardy, rugged discipline of
Sparta? Everything that grows in its own natural soil attains the greater
perfection: whatever is planted in a foreign land, by a gradual change in
its nature degenerates into a similitude to that which affords it nurture.
Brutes retain for a time, when taken, their natural ferocity; but after
being long fed by the hands of men, they grow tame. Think ye then that
Nature does not act in the same manner in softening the savage tempers of
men? Do you believe these to be of the same kind that their fathers and
grandfathers were?
* * * "By the very great fertility of the soil, the very great mildness
of the climate, and the gentle dispositions of the neighboring nations,
all that barbarous fierceness which they brought with them has been quite
mollified."
And finally the Romans themselves, in spite of their sanitary measures,
became from year to year more alien in blood from the genuine stock of
Romulus and Remus, until the distinctive characters of the conquerors of
the earth finally disappeared.
The Latins, Sabines, and primitive Etruscans pressed constantly upon them
with the irresistible force of destiny. When Scipio AEmilianus was
interrupted in the forum by this mongrel populace, he exclaimed, "Silence,
false sons of Italy! Think ye to scare me with your brandished hands, ye
whom I led myself in bonds to Rome?"
When the fierce and hardy Northmen descended into Southern Europe, they
carried along with their laws a chastity and a reserve that excited
universal surprise. But these virtues were not of long continuance there;
the climate and the customs of the new society soon warmed their frozen
imaginations, and their laws by degrees relaxed, and their manners even
more than their laws.
The giants of the North many times swept down over the plains of Italy,
and regenerated with fresh and pure blood the puny breeds of degenerate
Rome, but they have since disappeared, and their descendants are no longer
to be found in these countries.