62

CHAP.

II.

Generaluse of bothlanguages.

THE DECLINE AND FALL

with Greek cities, and the long reign of the Ma-. cedonian kings had introduced a silent revolu-tion into Syria and Egypt . In their pompouscourts those princes united the elegance ofAthens with the luxury of the East, and theexample of the court was imitated, at an humbledistance, by the higher ranks of their subjects.Such was the general division of the Roman em-pire into the Latin and Greek languages. Tothese we may add a third distinction for the bodyof the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt .The use of their ancient dialects, by secludingthem from the commerce of mankind, checkedthe improvements of those barbarians.' Theslothful effeminacy of the former exposed themto the contempt; the sullen ferociousness of thelatter excited the aversion of the conquerors. 11Those nations had submitted to the Romanpower, but they seldom desired or deserved thefreedom of the city, and it was remarked, thatmore than two hundred and thirty years elapsed,after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyp-tian was admitted into the senate of Rome.*

It is a just, though trite observation, that vic-torious Rome was herself subdued by the arts ofGreece . Those immortal writers who still com-mand the admiration of modern Europe , soonbecame the favourite object of study and imita-

1 The curious reader may see in Dupin (Bibliotheque Eeclesiastique,tom. xix. p. 1. c, 8), how much the use of the Syriac and Egyptian languages was still preserved.

“ See Juvenal, Sat. iii and xv, Ammian . Marceflin.xxii, 16.

x Dion Cassius , 1. lxxvii, p. 1276. The first instance happened un-der the reign of Septimius Severus .