considered the distinctive mark of sovereignty, viz. the right of coinage.  Broadly speaking, the only conditions imposed were very similar to those now forming the basis of the relations between the British Government and the Native States of India.  These were (1) that the various commonwealths should keep the peace between each other; and (2) that their foreign policy should be dictated by Rome.  It is often tacitly assumed, Mr. Reid says, that “in dealing with conquered peoples, the Romans were animated from the first by a passion for immediate domination and for grinding uniformity.”  This idea is not merely false; it is the very reverse of the truth.  The most distinctive feature of Roman rule during the early period of expansion was its marvellous elasticity and pliability.  Everywhere local customs were scrupulously respected.  Everywhere the maintenance of whatever autonomous institutions existed at the time of conquest was secured.  Everywhere the allies were treated with what the Greeks termed [Greek:  epimeleia], which may be rendered into English by the word “consideration.”  Nowhere was the fatal mistake made of endeavouring to stamp out by force a local language or dialect, whilst until the Romans were brought into contact with the stubborn monotheism of the Jews, the easy-going pantheistic ideas current in the ancient world readily obviated the occurrence of any serious difficulties based on religious belief or ritual.

That this system produced results which were, from a political point of view, eminently satisfactory cannot for a moment be doubted.  Mr. Reid says—­and it were well that those who are interested in the cause of British Imperial Federation should note the remark—­“In history the lightest bonds have often proved to be the strongest.”  The loosely compacted alliance of the Italic states withstood all the efforts of Hannibal to rend it asunder.  The Roman system, in fact, created a double patriotism, that which attached itself to the locality, and that which broadened out into devotion to the metropolis.  Neither was the one allegiance destructive of the other.  When Ennius made his famous boast he did not mean that he spurned Rudiae and that he would for the future look exclusively to Rome as his mother-country, but rather that both the smaller and the larger patriotism would continue to exist side by side.  “English local life,” it has been truly said, “was the source and safeguard of English liberty."[100] It may be said with equal truth that the notion of constituting self-governing town communities as the basis of Empire, which, Mr. Reid tells us, “was deeply ingrained in the Roman consciousness,” stood Rome in good stead during some of the most stormy periods of her history.  The process of voluntary Romanisation was so speedy that the natives of any province which, to use the Roman expression, had been but recently “pacated,” became in a very short time loyal and zealous Roman subjects, and rarely if ever took advantage of distress elsewhere to vindicate their independence by seeking to cast off the light shackles which had been imposed on them.