Page 268 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

A Twentieth-Century Outlook. 249

with the view of warding off the more remote,
and to recruit the Roman army by enlistment
from the enemy's country, he gained for the
Hellenic-Italian culture the interval necessary
to civilize the West, just as it had already civ-
ilized the East. . . . Centuries elapsed before
men understood that Alexander had not merely
erected an ephemeral kingdom in the East, but
had carried Hellenism to Asia ; centuries again
elapsed before men understood that Caesar had
not merely conquered a new province for the
Romans, but had laid the foundation for the
Romanizing of the regions of the West. It
was only a late posterity that perceived the
meaning of those expeditions to England and
Germany, so inconsiderate in a military point
of view, and so barren of immediate result. . . .
That there is a bridge connecting the past glory
of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of
modern history ; that western Europe is Ro-
manic, and Germanic Europe classic ; that the
names of Themistocles and Scipio have to
us a very different sound from those of Asoka
and Salmanassar; that Homer and Sophocles
are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa,
attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom