Latinizing

On the other hand the Roman element was promoted by the government through colonization and Latinizing with all vigour and at the most various points of the empire.  The principle, which originated no doubt from a bad combination of formal law and brute force, but was inevitably necessary in order to freedom in dealing with the nations destined to destruction—­that all the soil in the provinces not ceded by special act of the government to communities or private persons was the property of the state, and the holder of it for the time being had merely an heritable possession on sufferance and revocable at any time—­was retained also by Caesar and raised by him from a democratic party-theory to a fundamental principle of monarchical law.

Cisalpine Gaul

Gaul, of course, fell to be primarily dealt with in the extension of Roman nationality.  Cisalpine Gaul obtained throughout—­ what a great part of the inhabitants had long enjoyed—­ political equalization with the leading country by the admission of the Transpadane communities into the Roman burgess-union, which had for long been assumed by the democracy as accomplished,(90) and was now (705) finally accomplished by Caesar.  Practically this province had already completely Latinized itself during the forty years which had elapsed since the bestowal of Latin rights.  The exclusives might ridicule the broad and gurgling accent of the Celtic Latin, and miss “an undefined something of the grace of the capital” in the Insubrian or Venetian, who as Caesar’s legionary had conquered for himself with his sword a place in the Roman Forum and even in the Roman senate-house.  Nevertheless Cisalpine Gaul with its dense chiefly agricultural population was even before Caesar’s time in reality an Italian country, and remained for centuries the true asylum of Italian manners and Italian culture; indeed the teachers of Latin literature found nowhere else out of the capital so much encouragement and approbation.

The Province of Narbo

While Cisalpine Gaul was thus substantially merged in Italy, the place which it had hitherto occupied was taken by the Transalpine province, which had been converted by the conquests of Caesar from a frontier into an inland province, and which by its vicinity as well as by its climate was fitted beyond all other regions to become in due course of time likewise an Italian land.  Thither principally, according to the old aim of the transmarine settlements of the Roman democracy, was the stream of Italian emigration directed.  There the ancient colony of Narbo was reinforced by new settlers, and four new burgess-colonies were instituted at Baeterrae (Beziers) not far from Narbo, at Arelate (Aries) and Arausio (Orange) on the Rhone, and at the new seaport Forum Julii (Frejus); while the names assigned to them at the same time preserved the memory of the brave legions which had annexed northern Gaul to the empire.(91) The townships not furnished