The Edui, on account of their long-standing alliance with Rome, were confirmed in the right of access to the Senate.

As a step in a long evolution, an edict of Caracalla, between 212 and 217, extended Roman citizenship to all the inhabitants of the Empire. It is curious that such a momentous act should have passed comparatively unnoticed, and, on the whole, should have meant so little. The aristocracy throughout the world were already in possession of citizenship; the new and illusory political rights brought no advantages to the lower classes; and it seems that the edict was accompanied by a number of restrictions. But the trend of Roman policy is unmistakable, and its success beyond doubt.

§ 3. GALLO-ROMAN CITIES.

The Gallic cities modelled their government upon that of Rome. Even Massalia, proud as she was of her long Greek tradition, followed the example under Marcus-Aurelius. Everywhere we find replicas of the Consuls (duumvirs) and of the Senate (Curia). These local governments were decidedly aristocratic. Rome herself had long given up the rule of popular assemblies, and her best allies in Gaul had ever been the upper classes. The Curia, generally composed of a hundred members, was recruited exclusively from among the rich, and was practically an hereditary body. Municipal honours were from the first burdensome, but they did not become crushing until the third century; as they were the sign of local prominence, and opened the way to higher distinctions, even to Senatorial rank, they were willingly accepted.

The character of the government changed with that of the whole civilization. The term " city," applied by Roman historians to the independent Gallic states, is misleading. The so-called "city" was, as we have seen, chiefly a rural territory, with a few oppida or fortresses of refuge, and temporary market-places. With the spread of Roman peace and prosperity, the city became what it already was in Greece and Italy: predominantly an urban centre. During the heyday of Gallo-Roman civilization, that is to say until the middle of the third century, the aristocracy and a new class of merchants congregated in the towns, which assumed an activity and a splendour hitherto undreamt of. It was

then that the south of Gaul in particular was covered with monuments, many of which have survived the great invasions basilicas, temples,' triumphal arches,' theatres,' and especially amphitheatres for the gladiatorial games." For the water supply of these cities great aqueducts were built, the best preserved in France being the famous Pont du Gard. An admirable system of roads was constructed, paved with heavy slabs on a thick bed of mortar, lined with ornamental milestones, time-defying in their useful magnificence. The bath, the forum, and the circus became essential elements in Gallo-Roman life. Roman costumes were adopted-Rome, it is true, partly returned the compliment; the very family names were made to conform to Roman usage.

§ 4. GALLO-ROMAN RELIGION.

Nowhere is this process of assimilation so strikingly marked as in religion: for religion is as a rule the last stronghold of national conservatism. The Romans, thanks to their political rather than mystic turn of mind, were able to meet the Gauls half-way. They established between the gods of the two races a rough and ready correspondence. Thus it was taken for granted that the great national god of the Gauls was Mercury, and a colossal statue of the "Arvernian Mercury," by Zenodorus, adorned the sanctuary of Puy-de-Dôme. An altar erected by the guild of the bargemen of the Seine was found under the chancel of NotreDame in Paris; on one side it represents Esus, on the other Jupiter. In the minds of the faithful it was the same god under the Gallic sagum and the Roman toga.

This religious approximation went one step further: Romans and Gauls, living under the same wise and strong rule, worshipped in common the Eternal City, the Goddess Rome, and her divine ruler on earth, the Emperor. This cult was a form of good citizenship. In Lyons, the capital of Celtic Gaul, was erected an altar to Rome and Augustus, surrounded by the statues of the sixty Gallic cities. The native nobles became "flamines" or priests of Augustus. In order to associate more closely the lower classes with this civic religion, an order of Augustales was created which,

1 Maison Carrée and Temple of Diana, Nîmes; Temple of Livia, Vienne. 2 Orange. Arles and Nîmes,

3 Orange.

in each city, combined the priesthood with the functions of street commissioners. Thus heaven and earth united to cement the Roman order.1

When new cults were introduced from the East by soldiers, traders or missionaries, whether it be Mithraism or Christianity, no difference can be detected between the attitudes of the Gallic and the Roman elements, so far, at least, as the upper and middle classes were concerned. Gaul had indeed become an integral part of the Roman world.

§ 5. LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

The most complete victory of Rome was that of the Latin language. Celtic died slowly in the remoter regions: it seems that it was still spoken in the fourth century; but it died, leaving hardly any trace. Even Armorica was then romanized like the rest of Gaul: its partial reconquest by Celtic was due to later invasions from Britain. The Basques alone of the primitive populations preserved their own language in an obscure corner of the Pyrenees. Out of some ten thousand Gallo-Roman inscriptions, barely twenty are in Celtic. About four hundred and fifty words of ancient Celtic have reached us: out of these it is doubtful whether more than thirty have survived in modern French,

Education.

The upper classes learned, and attempted to write and speak, the purest classical Latin. The schools of Gaul soon became famous. Massalia, indeed, had long been a centre of Hellenic culture for the western basin of the Mediterranean, but it can hardly be called Gallo-Roman at all. The name, on the contrary, admirably fits Autun, where the sons of the Celtic aristocracy were initiated to the learning of their conquerors. The school went down in the disaster which befell the city in the third century; but Constantius Chlorus revived its ancient glory, and appointed as its head his secretary and friend Eumenius. Rheims in the north, and especially the universities of Aquitania, were the successful rivals of Autun. Thanks to Ausonius,

1 This administrative religion went to curious lengths: Renan mentions, among the deities honoured in Gaul, a "Genius of Indirect Taxation "Numini Augustorum et Genio Portorii Publici (Renan, Marc-Aurèle, p. 565). Cf. next chapter.

who has left us intimate sketches of his colleagues, we are familiar with the school of Bordeaux. The curriculum —grammar and rhetoric-was based on the explanation of Greek and Latin writers. Sciences, philosophy, and, stranger to say, even law, were hardly taught at all in the schools of the West. The students were numerous, and grouped in corporations. Although scholarships were not unknown, the majority of the students belonged to the upper classes, and were qualifying themselves for an administrative career. The professors were richly paid-partly out of the public treasury, mostly out of students' fees. They enjoyed great social prestige; and they were occasionally called to the highest functions in the State: Eumenius and Ausonius ranked among the greatest personages of their times.

Literature.

This Gallo-Roman culture was brilliant, but without any spark of originality. Like its architecture and its sculpture, the literature of Gaul was Greco-Roman, but not Celtic. Trogus-Pompeius, the first of a creditable roll of writers, lived under Augustus, and is known to us mainly through Justin's abridgment of his Universal History: curiously enough, his point of view is neither Gallic nor Roman, but purely Greek. It is in the twilight of the Roman world, at the close of the tragic fourth century, at the beginning of the disastrous fifth, that the orators and poets of Gaul stand most distinctly before us. Both Ausonius and Rutilius Namatianus are glancing backwards, hardly aware, it would seem, of the travail and portents about them. Ausonius, poet, courtier, and professor, is an all-too-skilful versifier, and a master mosaist of classical quotations. But he has an amiable vein of his own, a quiet descriptive talent,' and there are happy touches in his sketches of family and academic life. He was a Christian, but his religion does not seem to have vitally affected his art and thought. Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, on the contrary, was a Pagan of the Pagans. He embraced in the same burning faith the crumbling religion and the threatened city. Never has the civilizing mission of Rome inspired a more ardent tribute of reverence and love. The Goths were near the

1 Cf. his poem on the river Moselle.

walls of the capital; his own estates in Gaul had been ravaged; but still the poet hailed Rome as the eternal mistress of the world.

1

Whilst the aristocracy was learning in the schools the language of Cicero and Vergil, it was a very different Latin that spread among the people: the rough, ungrammatical, slangy jargon of soldiers, slaves, and traders, further clipped or twisted by the Celtic brogue. Thus arose, long despised, the Romance dialects, one of which was destined to become French.

Survival of Latin.

Under this form, altered almost beyond recognition-but who should dare to call it debased ?-Latin is alive to-day. But even classical Latin could claim that the news of its death is greatly exaggerated. It was not until 1539 that French became the language of royal justice and administration. We have to wait until 1541 for a theological treatise in French-a momentous one, Calvin's Institution Chrétienne; and nearly a century longer for the first work of pure philosophy in the "vulgar tongue"-Descartes's Discours de la Méthode, in 1637. Up to the seventeenth century Latin remained unchallenged as the language of science, superior education, and diplomacy. Until quite recently all official inscriptions were worded in sonorous and at times unintelligible Latin. Twenty years ago one of the two theses required in France for the Doctor's Degree had to be in Latin. It is still the language of the Catholic Church, in ritual, administration, and teaching. In the eyes of philologists the most promising scheme for a neutral, international language would be, not an artificial hybrid like Esperanto, but a boldly simplified, analytical Latin. Thus has the speech of a rude pastoral village impressed itself upon distant nations for nearly two thousand years.

1 A few instances of slang in popular Latin: testa (pot) instead of caput (head); perna (ham) instead of crus (leg); botulum (sausage, black pudding) instead of intestina.