Centred in the city of Rome, the civilization of Ancient Rome ruled much of Europe for over 1000 years. The diverse phases of Roman art correspond to as many phases in the spiritual and political life of the Roman people. It has its origin in the national character and circumstances of the Romans. The ideal in matters of taste in ancient Rome was only derived by them from the gods through the medium of another nation. Their own notion of the highest of all things, their summum bonum, was not the beautiful, but the powerful. And this they thought they had as a nation received from heaven. In order to fully to appreciate Rome’s contribution to the art of the West, we need to understand how upon the old Latin stock were grafted shoots brought in turn from Etruria, from Greece, from the great Hellenistic cities of Asia and of Africa. And if these foreign growths threatened at times, as towards the end of the Republic, to absorb the vital sap of the original tree, yet the Roman type recovered itself under the Empire and gradually reached its full and independent development.
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