Note 88 — Chapter IX · LEADERSHIP OR PERSONAL ASCENDENCY

The fact that the Roman system meant organized ennui in thought, the impossibility of entertaining large and hopeful views of life, is strikingly brought out by the aid of contemporary documents in Dill’s Roman Society. Prisoners of a shrinking system, the later Romans had no outlook except toward the past. Anything onward and open in thought was inconceivable by them.