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 Javascript:
Crash Course - The Complete Beginners
Guide To Learning JavaScript Programming
In No Time!
Table of contents

Introduction
Chapter 1 – An Introduction to Programming
How do we write programs?
What can I make in a program?
Planning your programs
Reuse code
Avoid Yellow Code
Document your code
Develop your own style
Always Improve
Chapter 2 – Javascript 101
Setting up our working environment
Functions and Variables
Variables
Functions
Data Types
Keeping your code readable
Using libraries and prewritten code
Showing off your code
Commenting your code
Resources
Conclusion
Introduction

The Internet is build on a core set of fundamental programming languages. These

languages help to drive functionality and feature rich content to users all over the world.
Some of the languages that are used are PHP, Pearl, MySql, Ruby on Rails, Java and the
language that we are going to talk about today which is Javascript.
If you are someone who has never programmed before or if you are just looking to try this
is the book for you. I am a programmer myself and I know how difficult it is sometimes
to go through some of these book and learn a language.
Since I am a developer myself I am going to approach this book ins simple easy to
understand step by step manner. At the end of the book you will have the foundation and
the knowledge to advance your skills and actually start developing your very own web
applications using Javascript as well as other programming languages.
Chapter 1 – An Introduction to Programming

Before we get into Javascript and web development lets get some basics and foundation.
When it comes to learning a new language be it a spoken language or a computer language
you need to understand how it is used in the real world. When it comes to computer
languages they all work basically the same.
They are a grouping of text files with different extension on them to tell the others files
that are on your computer how to access and interpret them.
So for example if you have a file such as index.html your web browser program will
understand through its set of files that it is the first file it should look for when visiting a
web site.
The same goes for programming languages. When you have a grouping of files the
program known as the compiler will read the listing of files looking for a specific one.
Then when it finds that file it will look for specific instructions or lines of code to do
specific tasks according to your input or through different sets of code it discovers.
In simpler terms if you have a list of groceries and you are at the store. You will start at
the top of your list and go to that item.
Then when you have that item you will look at the list again and jump to the next closest
item on your list until you come to the end of the list and end up at the checkout.
I hope you can see the picture and the pattern of what I am talking about. The same set of
rules applies to a computer language. You have a set of or list in the grocery store.
Depending on the choices that you make from that list will determine how you interact in
the store.
The same applies to programing. What choices the user makes as they go through your
program will result in different responses from your program.
How do we write programs?

It is very simple to write programs. You can write a program in any language using a
program like notepad. You don’t want to use programs such as Microsoft Word since
these programs put in their own codes and information and will not create a clean file.
If you like a visual interface most programming languages have what is known as a GII or
Graphical User Interface. These programs make developing a program much easier and
cleaner.
What can I make in a program?

You can make anything you can think of in a program. The main areas that you need to
know is what you want to make, where you want to start, what you want your user to do
and what the end result will be. For example many programmers start out with the “Hello
World” example.
If you have been programming for any length of time you will see this example used all
over the place.
This is a very useless program in itself but it does show you the basics and the foundation
of programming and does allow you to see a program function in the language of your
choice.
When it comes to developing programs however some languages are designed and
developed to perform specific functions.
Javascript for example is designed for web applications and functionality on the web.
Visual Basic on the other hand is more designed for office and desktop applications.
You can do web applications with Visual basic but there is a lot of tasks that you will need
to perform just as if you were to use Javascript in a desktop application you would have to
do a lot of major programming to get something to work. This is just because they were
not meant to work in the others environment.
This is why there are so many different languages for you to choose from. The great thing
is though if you learn the basic foundation of one you will be able to see and recognize
similarities in multiple languages and pick them up easily.
Planning your programs

When you get into programming you will want to plan out your programs from start to
finish. Now you will be able to change things around and can move away from your
original plan but if you have a basic idea and a path you wish to follow then your
programming efforts will have greater results.

Reuse code
When you start programming for a long period of time you will soon realize that you will
be using a lot of the same code in your programs. When you start developing it will be a
good idea to start building up your own database of code files that you can reuse in other
projects. This is a good programing habit and practice to get into. You don’t want to
reinvent the wheel every time you write something.

Avoid Yellow Code

A term in the programing community is yellow code. This is code that is sloppy and just
filled with bugs. We call it yellow code for the color of pee since that is all it is good for.
When writing your programs follow a logical path and think out problems before you start
coding. It will save you time and headache in the long run.

Document your code

One of the biggest mistakes people make when writing code is not to document their
code. When you start writing a lot of code it will start to bled in together and you will not
know when one function ends or where another procedure begins.
When you document your code you are doing it for yourself. You can use comments in
your code anywhere you want and when you need to make a change or fix a problem you
will easily know where to go, where you ended up and what ideas you wanted to
implement. So comment everything!

Develop your own style

Programming is an art form. When you code you are writing the same thing that others
are writing but are doing it in your own style.
When you develop awesome programs other programmers will look at your code and
drool over how clean and efficient it is. I know it sounds goofy and dumb t.but it is a
fact. You can be famous for the way you write your code.
Always Improve
No matter what you do or what you write you can always improve on it. When new
technology is developed and new foundations in the language are developed you will want
to use these to improve on your existing work to make it cleaner and more efficient.
This is the basics of programming. The rest is just learning how to read and write the
language. In the next chapter we will start to talk about Javascript, what you can do with
it and get you started making your first set of programs.
Chapter 2 – Javascript 101

Now that you have the basic understanding of what a programming language is and what
you can do in order to start writing your own we are going to jump into Javascript and
start developing your very own programs.
Before we jump in to coding I want to get you setup with a few things. I want you go to
http://www.brackets.io and download their software. This software will be our
programing editor we will use in this book.
If you have a text editor or another program that you feel comfortable using and it will
work with Javascript then go ahead and use it. If you don’t then look at brackets.io and
follow along in the book.
Next I don’t want you to look at any types of javascript libraries or other prewritten code.
One mistake people make is going out and getting these libraries and think they can build
a program.
Well you can do this but you need to have the foundation first in order to build off these
libraries. So libraries are great but don’t look at them, think about them or focus on them
until after you have completed this book and tried some of the exercise that I discuss here.
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
are not concerned here with the many complex questions which
arise in attempting to explain the development of the grand jury and
the petty jury on English soil. The outstanding fact is that we owe the
judge-and-jury system to the Romans.
One of the most extraordinary features of their judicial system was
the fact that the Romans had no permanent public prosecutor. The
bringing of criminal actions under the republic was left to private
initiative, but there seem to have been enough ambitious politicians
to prosecute cases, at least those cases which were likely to bring
distinction to the successful prosecutor. Indeed on some occasions
the praetor, before beginning a trial, was obliged to give a
preliminary hearing to several lawyers who claimed the distinction of
bringing the charge against the accused party. The merits and
defects of such a system are obvious. Charges were likely to be
pushed with vigor, because the reputation of an advocate depended
on securing a conviction, and sometimes a patriotic citizen
prosecuted a powerful politician when a public prosecutor would
have hesitated to do so. But on the whole the plan did not work well.
This was especially true when there was a political element in the
case. In such circumstances the charge was usually brought by a
political opponent, or what was worse still, a political supporter might
put the defendant on trial and secure an acquittal, before a real
prosecution could take place. Before being allowed to undertake the
prosecution of Verres, the venal and tyrannical governor of Sicily,
Cicero had to convince the presiding praetor that his claim to the
right of conducting the case was better than that of Quintus Caecilius
Niger, who had been quaestor of Verres, and hoped to secure the
acquittal of his former superior. Such cases of collusion between the
prosecutor and the defendant became so common, that a heavy
penalty was imposed on those found guilty of it. Even under the
empire, when the senate began to hear certain important cases,
there was no permanent public prosecutor, but the senate
designated members of its own body to conduct the prosecution and
the defence. In these trials the senate functioned as a jury, and the
presiding consul, as a judge. As the emperor gained a greater
control of public affairs, it was not unnatural that he should take over
criminal jurisdiction in important cases or delegate it to his prefects.
When this point was reached, probably the prosecution of criminal
actions was assumed more definitely by the state.
We frequently introduce “character witnesses” in our trials. The
Romans went still further. A Roman defendant brought with him to
the court as many prominent friends (advocati) as he could to make
a favorable impression on the jury. In important cases today in
America, although attorneys for the prosecution and defence
sometimes give the jury brief outlines of the case before the
evidence is presented, their formal pleas are not made until the
evidence is in. Our method is inductive. Formal pleas were usually
made in a Roman court before the testimony was given. Much can
be said for the Roman plan. Having the analyses of the case, as
presented by the prosecution and defence, clearly in mind, the
average juryman is perhaps better qualified to decide which theory is
made more probable by the facts in the case and is in a better
position to pick out the salient facts than he is when dealing with
heterogeneous bits of evidence. The same looseness of procedure
which characterized the meetings of the Roman Senate is found in
the courts.[20] The jury was not under careful surveillance;
demonstrations of approval and disapproval occurred, violent
discussions were not always stopped, the rules of evidence were
less strict than they are with us, and technicalities played a less
important part. In some of these particulars Continental courts have
inherited Roman practices more fully than Anglo-Saxon courts have.
In consequence of their elimination of technicalities, the Romans
brought important criminal cases to an end much more quickly than
we do, and justice was cheaper than it is with us. In Anglo-Saxon
courts hearsay evidence, the opinions of witnesses, and facts
irrelevant to the issue are excluded by the presiding judge. These
rules of evidence were not applied in Roman courts, and when the
Continental countries reintroduced the jury system, they went back
to the Roman practices in this matter, as we noticed a few years ago
in the famous trial at Viterbo.

6. Conception of Citizenship
 i. in times of peace

A jealous solicitude for the rights of the average citizen is a

marked trait of the Roman character. A clear understanding of what
the rights of the common man were and an ingrained purpose to
protect him in the exercise of them determine the development of
judicial procedure in Rome, of law, and of political organizations.
Perhaps the Romans have bequeathed to us no greater heritage
than their conception of citizenship. With them it was not a mere
dogma of political philosophy, set forth in the writings of idealists or
incorporated in general terms in declarations of rights. It was made a
reality in everyday life by law, by tradition, and by political reforms. It
finds expression in the first written law which the Romans had, that
of the Twelve Tables, and five centuries later we hear an echo of it in
the historic claim of St. Paul. This ideal has been before us through
the ages, and has been an inspiration and a guide to every true
leader of democracy. The laws of the Twelve Tables, of which
mention has just been made, set down in written form and in great
detail an orderly procedure, which must be followed in a judicial
action, and thus informed a citizen of his rights, and laid an
obligation on the state to see that they were observed. The Valerio-
Horatian law a little later gave a citizen the privilege of appealing in a
capital case to the popular assembly. The establishment of the
tribunate provided a democratic official to safeguard him against the
arbitrary action of a magistrate. The dictatorship, the “final decree of
the senate,” and the other devices which the state used under the
republic to suspend the rights of citizens were either done away with
or hemmed in by constitutional safeguards. Cicero brings his terrible
indictment of the governor of Sicily to a fitting climax with the charge
that Verres had caused a Roman citizen to be put to death, and
turning to the man at the bar he cries: si tu apud Persas aut in
extrema India deprehensus, Verres, ad supplicium ducerere, quid
clamitares, nisi te civem esse Romanum? It is true that there were
many slaves in the Roman world, and that many freemen within its
limits did not enjoy the full rights of Roman citizenship until late in the
imperial period, but these facts do not weaken the point in which we
are interested here. Wherever he went a citizen had behind him the
sovereignty of the Roman state. Any community which wronged him
must make restitution, or it would feel the heavy hand of Rome. This
Roman principle that a state may protect its citizens even in a foreign
land has been accepted by modern nations and is jealously
observed by them. In fact international relations are concerned in
large measure with the protection by a state of its citizens or subjects
residing in foreign countries. Their passports certify to their
citizenship. They may appeal to their minister or ambassador when
they think themselves wronged, and may look with confidence for the
support of the army and navy of their respective countries, when
their lives, liberty, or property are threatened.

ii. in times of war

We have just been considering the fortunate position of the

Roman citizen in times of peace. When wars arose, he became the
servant of the state. Unlike the Carthaginians, the Romans did not
during the periods of the Great Wars, employ mercenaries. Service
in the army was compulsory on all citizens between seventeen and
forty-six years of age who had property of a certain amount. Those
who avoided service were liable to have their property confiscated,
or to be sold as slaves, and desertion was a capital offence.
Discipline was strict, and punishments were severe. But at the end of
a campaign the soldier returned to civil life. Before the close of the
third century b.c., however, the territory of Rome extended beyond
the sea, and a soldier’s term of service was correspondingly
lengthened. This fact made the well-to-do, who were already
disinclined to service in the army, still more opposed to it. This was
the situation which led Marius to substitute voluntary enlistment for
conscription toward the end of the second century. The new plan
quickly filled the ranks of the army. The needy and the adventurous
found a soldier’s career attractive. They accepted it as their life’s
work. Their home was the camp. “Esprit de corps took the place of
patriotism.” As I have remarked in my Roman Political Institutions:
“Henceforth the soldiers who came back to the city after protracted
campaigns did not look on their commander, as their fathers had
done, as a simple fellow-citizen, who had like themselves been
serving the state, and now resumed his place by their side. Long
periods of service abroad under the direction of one man had led
them to follow implicitly the guidance of an individual.” The veterans
of Marius, of Sulla, of Pompey, and of Caesar could be trusted to
follow at home the political leadership of the man under whom they
had served abroad. This situation threw the control of politics into the
hands of those who commanded the largest armies. What was still
worse, the state could no longer count on the fidelity of its soldiers.
Their allegiance had been transferred from Rome to their
commander-in-chief, and the security of the government itself might
depend on his loyalty or his lack of political ambition. From the
beginning of the first century before Christ to the end of the empire
the sinister figure of the army is ever in the background. It was a
disturbing force in politics, as we have just seen, by giving political
offices and an undue influence to military men without regard to their
fitness for political leadership, and by organizing forcible interference
with public meetings of which the veterans disapproved; and the
claims which the soldiers made for lands and bonuses often put the
government in a difficult position. Of some of these evils, of which we
have been painfully aware in this country after our various wars, we
shall have occasion to speak in the next chapter. Fortunately in our
history the army has never threatened the existence of a stable
government or been used to overthrow it, as it was used in Rome in
the year 68-69 and almost constantly during the third century of our
era.

7. Taxation and Finance

In the fields of taxation and public finance we have not much to
learn from the Romans, save by way of warning. Most of the revenue
of the state came from the provinces, and for several centuries was
collected by tax-farmers.[21] We are familiar enough in more recent
times with the exploitation of provinces, or colonies, as we call them,
by the state or the great trading company, because most modern
nations have followed Rome’s policy of making their colonies
subserve the interests of the mother country. In Sicily, the first
overseas territory which the Romans acquired, they took over the
system of taxation which they found in vogue there. That system
rested on the Oriental theory that the land belonged to the sovereign,
and that those who held the land paid rent for its use. This was the
basis of taxation in all the later provinces also. Next in importance to
the tribute were the customs duties. They brought in a large revenue,
but were a great impediment to trade. Rome held almost all the
civilized world. Consequently duties collected on the frontiers of the
empire would not have amounted to much. What the Romans did
was to divide the empire into tariff districts, and collect duties from
those entering these districts. Trade suffered in consequence, as it
did in France before the Revolution under similar conditions. The
only other important tax in this connection was the five per cent
inheritance tax imposed on property left to others than near relatives.
It was instituted by Augustus, was levied on Roman citizens, and
met with violent opposition. This system, taken in its entirety, relieved
Italy from the burden of taxation.
The grant of Roman citizenship to practically all freemen in the
provinces by Caracalla in 212 was therefore a severe blow to Italy,
because it raised the provinces to the level of the peninsula, and
paved the way for Diocletian to apply his fiscal reforms to the whole
Roman world.[22] His system of taxation was one of the most
complete and methodical that has ever been known. We can speak
of only a few of its salient features here. The population was divided
into three classes, the owners of land or other property, merchants,
and laborers. For the first class, the class most important for the
purpose of taxation, the fiscal unit was the caput or iugum. The caput
was the working power of a man in good health. A iugum was a
piece of land from which a fixed return might be expected. The
number of capita and iuga was determined by a careful census at
fixed intervals, and each land owner paid according to the number of
laborers and iuga on his estate. The tax paid by merchants
depended on the capital invested in their business. Laborers paid a
poll tax. The plan was well thought out, but the failure of the
government to reduce the valuation of property as the prosperity of
the empire declined, and its inability to reduce its own expenses
made the taxes an intolerable burden, and contributed largely to
impoverish the people and ruin local self-government. The Roman
system of taxation, with some modifications, continued in use after
the dissolution of the Empire and exerts an influence on our modern
systems. Duties were still collected on wares in transit at frontiers, at
bridges and at other points on the public highways. A quota of the
produce was required from the owners of land, and the property of
those who died without leaving a will went to the crown. It is clear
that most of the Roman taxes, for instance, customs duties, the
inheritance tax, a tax on landed property, and a poll tax, have been
taken over by us, and find a place in our modern systems of taxation.
The funds which came into the imperial treasury from the different
sources mentioned above were spent mainly on the government of
the provinces, on roads, bridges, and other public works, on religion,
on the army and navy, and on the city of Rome. It is impossible to
find out the size of these different items. It has been calculated that
in the early part of the first century the army cost 160,000,000
sesterces a year, a sum which, with some hesitation, one may
roughly estimate had the purchasing value of $8,000,000. An
imperial procurator in one of the provinces received an annual salary
which ranged from $3,000 to $15,000. The expense of provincial
government was tremendously increased from the second century
on by the development of an elaborate bureaucratic system. The
outgo for the city of Rome included expenditures for the construction
and maintenance of public works, for religious purposes, and to
provide food and amusement for the populace. We notice the
absence from the list of charges of certain items like appropriations
for education and charity which form an important part of a modern
budget.
Under the republic the control of finances rested mainly with the
senate; under the empire it was divided between the emperor and
the senate. The republican system of financial administration would
seem to us very loose, and surprising in the case of so practical a
people as the Romans. Under it the senate appropriated money for a
period of five years to be used by the censors in the construction of
public works, and lump sums were voted for expenditure by the other
civil magistrates, and itemized accounts were not required of them.
As happened in so many other matters, with the empire a better
system of financial administration came in. The government
collected most of the taxes through its own agents. The supervision
of receipts and expenditures was more thorough, and we hear of
something approaching an itemized budget. The lion’s share of the
revenues went into the imperial fiscus. The funds at the emperor’s
disposal were also materially augmented by the development of
crown property and of the emperor’s private fortune. Many large
private estates were confiscated by the emperor, and many legacies
were left to him. Indeed it was often a hazardous thing for a rich man
to pass over the emperor in his will. The hereditary principle of
succession was never formally recognized in the Roman
constitution, but it was practically followed from Augustus to Nero, so
that the interesting distinction which we make today between crown
property and the patrimony of the emperor was not adopted before
the year 69.
The minting of Roman money had the same history as the control
of the budget. The senate had charge of it under the republic. Under
the empire the emperor directed the gold and silver coinage; the
senate issued bronze coins. Two episodes in the history of Roman
coinage are of interest to the student of modern economic
conditions. If Professor Frank’s conclusions in a recent number of
Classical Philology[23] are correct, Rome had a real bimetallic
standard from 340 to 150 b.c. This was maintained by changing from
time to time the amount of metal entering respectively into the silver
and bronze coins of the period in question. The Roman system did
not, however, involve the free and unlimited coinage of both metals,
because the state limited its issue of money to the estimated needs
of the community. The other incident occurs under the empire. It has
its parallel in the unlimited issue of paper money today by many
European governments. The Roman government was hard pressed
to meet its obligations. It did so by debasing the coinage. This
process was carried so far that in the third century it refused to
receive its own silver coins in payment of taxes. Constantine brought
order out of this confusion, by making the gold solidus the standard.
This coin became the parent of the gold coinages both of the East
and the West. It was accepted by the barbarian states. From the
time of Pepin it was struck in silver and was current until 1793. The
modern French word sou is of course an abbreviation of its name.

8. Imperialism
Of all Rome’s achievements in the field of politics none was so far-
reaching in its influence and so lasting in its effects as her conquest
of the world and her successful government of it for five hundred
years or more. With the story of her conquests we are not concerned
here. But, as President Butler of Columbia University has said in his
Annual Report for 1921: “No educated citizen of a modern free state
can afford to ignore the lessons taught by the Roman Empire, which
for centuries held together in a commonwealth that was both
prosperous and contented peoples widely differing in religious faith,
in racial origin, and in vernacular speech.” How did she weld them
all, Britons, Gauls, Spaniards, and Africans, into one people whose
feeling of unity was so strong that even in the intervening centuries it
has not died out altogether? No national heroes will ever supplant
Trajan or Ovid in the hearts of the Roumanian people. When the
Italians invaded Tripoli a few years ago they thought of themselves
as following in the footsteps of their great ancestors, and a political
cartoon which had wide vogue in Italy at the time of the war and did
much to stimulate enthusiasm for it showed a shadowy Roman
commander, perhaps Scipio, landing in Africa at the head of an
Italian army. How few modern empires can hope to establish such
traditions as these, so far as peoples of alien races and religions are
concerned! That the Romans were more successful in developing a
feeling of solidarity and loyalty throughout their empire than modern
nations have been, we have the testimony from different points of
view of such competent judges as Lord Cromer and Boissier. In his
Ancient and Modern Imperialism Lord Cromer says: “If we turn to the
comparative results obtained by ancient and modern imperialists; if
we ask ourselves whether the Romans, with their imperfect means of
locomotion and communication, their relatively low standard of public
morality, and their ignorance of many economic and political truths,
which have now become axiomatic, succeeded as well as any
modern people in assimilating the nations which the prowess of their
arms had brought under their sway, the answer can not be doubtful.
They succeeded far better.” Elsewhere he remarks that “there has
been no thorough fusion, no real assimilation between the British
and their alien subjects, and, so far as we can now predict, the future
will in this respect be but a repetition of the past.”
Not only is this unparalleled achievement of the Romans worthy of
notice from the historical point of view, but the methods of
assimilation and government which gave them their success should
be peculiarly interesting and instructive to us in these days of fierce
national rivalry for the control of undeveloped lands and natural
resources. It is only fair to say that the Romans were more
successful among the semi-civilized peoples of the West than they
were in the Greek East. It is also true that most of the peoples within
the limits of the empire were of the white races, and that towards the
dark races the Romans do not seem to have shown the same
repugnance on the score of color which modern white peoples show.
Furthermore, the acceptance of polytheism in the ancient world
facilitated the amalgamation of two alien peoples, because each of
them was tolerant of the religion of the other and readily received the
other’s deities into its pantheon, whereas, as we know, the
monotheistic creeds of modern conquering peoples, like Christianity
and Mohammedanism, stand as a barrier between the conquerors
and the conquered. In addition to the concrete civilizing agencies
which they employed, and which we shall have occasion to notice in
a moment, we may find the grounds of their success in certain
mental and political qualities and habits. The Romans were not
idealists. Consequently they did not try to foist a new political and
social system on a conquered people. Indeed they were intellectually
phlegmatic and drew back from the task of thinking out a political
system in its entirety. They lacked alertness of mind and were not
much interested in political philosophy. Their policy at home and
abroad was that of opportunism. When they acquired a new territory,
therefore, they were content to introduce a few general
arrangements and then allow the conquered people to go on living
their own life, retaining their old religion, customs, practices, and
local institutions. Besides adopting this wise policy of tolerance, in
the best period of provincial government the Romans followed sound
administrative principles. They established a graded civil service,
with reasonable hope of promotion for competent officials. In this
way they developed a corps of experienced administrators. They
paid adequate salaries to provincial governors and their
subordinates, and secured them reasonably well against removal on
purely political grounds. The home government kept a close
supervision of provincial officials, and courts were provided for the
trial of charges brought against them. So far as we know, these wise
principles for the government of dependencies were first put into
application by the Romans, and few, if any, of our modern empires
are observing them with the same care that certain Roman emperors
did.[24]
Along with a good administrative system went protection of life and
property and the gradual extension of Roman law. The patience and
moderation of the Roman come out with special clearness in the last
matter. In spite of the supreme regard in which he held his own law,
the Roman allowed provincial cities of native origin to retain their
own local codes. Only colonies were required to adopt Roman law,
but, since the colony enjoyed special privileges, native communities
were often eager to gain the status of colonies, and with that status
went the willing acceptance of Roman law. The everyday life of the
Spaniard or the African under Roman rule went on as it had before.
He carried on his daily occupations as in the past. He worshipped his
native gods, and took part in his city’s traditional festivals and
merrymakings. If some one infringed on his rights, he brought action
under the old-time laws before magistrates of his own choosing.
Some general changes, however, which came with Roman rule
materially improved his condition. His taxes were usually less than
they had been before the Romans came. His life and property were
safer. Trade developed, and he saw his native town grow. This wise
treatment tended in time to make the natives of the West look on the
Roman government with a friendly eye.
 But the Romans used positive agencies in civilizing and
Romanizing newly conquered peoples. The most effective of these
agencies were the building of roads, the introduction of Latin, and
the founding of colonies. The success of modern imperialist states
has been determined in large measure by their wise or unwise use of
these means of developing a dependency and of binding it to the
rest of the empire, but we have much to learn in all three of these
matters from Roman methods. The first of the great Roman roads,
the Appian Way, was built in 312 b.c., near the close of the conquest
of Central Italy. It ran from Rome to Capua, and was soon extended
to the port which today bears the name of Brindisi. Before the close
of the second century b.c. four other great highways had been
constructed connecting Rome with Genoa, Reggio, Rimini and other
points in Northern Italy. From these trunk-lines, branch roads were
then built to large towns not situated on the main highway. This
network of roads connected all the important districts of Italy with
one another and with Rome. Those who have seen the remains of
the Appian Way or of other Roman roads know how well they were
built. The policy which was adopted for Central Italy, for Southern
Italy, and for Northern Italy, as section after section of the peninsula
yielded to Roman arms, was carried into the provinces. A map of
Spain, for instance, at the close of the reign of Augustus showing the
system of roads laid out by his engineers proves how thorough the
Romans were in their plans for the pacification of the country and the
development of its resources. These roads in the provinces, like the
Trans-Siberian railway, were built first of all for military purposes.
They made it easy to send troops and supplies to all parts of the
empire. But they served a larger purpose in facilitating trade, in
bringing remote regions into closer communication with one another
and with Rome, and in developing a common way of living and of
thinking throughout the world. In other words they helped to make
the empire a unit. Even after the political bonds which held the
Empire together had been relaxed, the roads were left. They made
trade and travel possible. They furnished a ready means of
communication between different parts of the world, and exerted a
powerful influence in preserving for us the features of Roman
civilization.[25]
 One reason why the Romans surpassed modern imperialist states
in their use of this effective civilizing agency is the fact that they
employed their legionaries and auxiliaries in times of peace in the
construction of roads and other public works. The story of the Third
Augustan Legion in Africa, as Reid outlines it in his Roman
Municipalities, is illuminating.[26] This legion was stationed in
Northern Africa for a century and a half or two centuries, and from
the numerous inscriptions which the French have brought to light
there we can see the beneficent results of its labors throughout the
province. In addition to the roads which it built, and the chains of
forts, which it constructed along the frontier, there were at least five
large towns which owed their construction almost entirely to the
soldiers of the Third Legion. They developed the town of Theveste
and constructed all the public buildings in it. When the surrounding
country became peaceful and prosperous, the legion moved on to a
new outpost, always enlarging the sphere of Roman influence. This
is the history of Timgad. At first it was a military post, established to
check raids by nomad tribes through the mountains. The soldiers
constructed temples, baths, and all the other public buildings needed
in a Roman city, and by 100 a.d. its importance was recognized by
its elevation to the proud position of a Roman colony. In all parts of
the Empire we find inscriptions recording the building by the soldiers
of roads, bridges, amphitheatres, aqueducts, and harbors. Whether
soldiers in modern times could be used for such purposes is
doubtful, but we can at least see in the use which the Romans made
of their soldiers one reason for their success as empire-builders.
In another way the soldiers played an important part in
Romanizing newly conquered territory. Near every important garrison
canabae, or settlements of merchants and camp-followers, sprang
up. Many of the auxiliaries married native women, who made their
homes in these villages. At the end of their term of service these
foreign soldiers were made Roman citizens. Their marriages with
native women were legalized, and they settled down in these
communities on the frontier, to introduce Roman ideas and Roman
institutions in the surrounding country. When we remember that
there were probably 200,000 auxiliary troops in the second century,
we can readily understand what a great influence their settlement in
the provinces must have had. In this connection it is convenient to
speak of the “organizations of Roman citizens,” or the conventus
civium Romanorum, as they were called. As soon as a new province
had been acquired, Roman bankers, merchants, ship-owners, and
publicans went to it and settled in the important cities. They quickly
formed an organization of their own in the community where they
lived, because it was natural for Romans to form a political or social
organization, and because certain rights and privileges which they
had set them off from the rest of the community. They made up the
aristocracy of the towns where they lived, and many natives must
have been spurred on to accept Roman ideas and attain Roman
citizenship for the sake of being enrolled in the conventus. The trade
which these merchants carried on, and which a fine system of roads
made possible, had a levelling influence throughout the Empire. Italy
and Gaul sent their pottery and bronze utensils, Syria its silk and
linen, Egypt its cotton goods and ivory, and Arabia its gums and
spices to all the great centres of the world. The articles of everyday
use and many articles of luxury were, therefore, the same in all the
provinces, and must have had a great influence in making the daily
life of all the people under Roman rule uniform. Trade usually
“followed the flag,” but in some cases enterprising Roman merchants
went in advance of it. Trajan found them in the capital of Parthia
when he took that city, and there was an “organization of Roman
citizens” in Alexandria long before Rome established a protectorate
over Egypt.
In his Ancient and Modern Imperialism Lord Cromer remarks:
“Modern Imperialist nations have sought to use the spread of their
language in order to draw political sympathy to themselves. This has
been notably the case as regards the French in the basin of the
Mediterranean, and—though perhaps less designedly—as regards
the English in India. I do not think that either nation is likely to attain
any great measure of success in this direction. They will certainly be
much less successful than the Romans. Neither in French, British,
nor, I think I may add, Russian possessions is there the least
probability that the foreign will eventually supplant the vernacular
languages.” Elsewhere he says: “(My) conclusion is that the great
proficiency in some European language often acquired by individuals
amongst the subject races of the modern Imperialist Powers in no
way tends to inspire political sympathy with the people to whom that
language is their mother tongue.... Indeed, in some ways, it (i.e.,
language) rather tends to disruption, inasmuch as it furnishes the
subject races with a very powerful arm against their alien rulers.”
This frank confession by a competent authority that the languages of
the dominant nations are not making much progress among the
subject races, and that proficiency in them tends often to alienate the
conquered people from their rulers, a fact which we have seen
illustrated lately in the case of the leaders of the revolutionary
movements in India, brings into striking relief not only the remarkable
success which the Romans had in making Latin the common
language of the western world but also the effective use which they
made of it in unifying the Empire. In two chapters of my book on The
Common People of Ancient Rome I have tried to show what the
nature of this language was and how it spread through the Empire.
[27] In Dacia, or modern Roumania, for instance, a province beyond
the Danube, which the Romans held for only one hundred and
seventy-five years, Latin was so firmly established that it has
persisted in its modern form to the present day. In his Romanization
of Roman Britain Haverfield has shown for this remote province from
a study of the ephemeral inscriptions on bricks and tiles that “Latin
was employed freely in the towns of Britain, not only on serious
occasions or by the upper classes, but by servants and work-people
for the most accidental purposes.” The missionaries who carried it
throughout the ancient world were the soldier, the colonist, the
trader, and the official. It surprises one to find out, also, that all
classes could not only speak Latin, but could read and write it.
Across the Empire from Britain to Dacia it is the same story. On the
tombstones of the petty merchant and the freedman, as well as on
the bronze tablets which contain laws and decrees, the language is
Latin, and essentially the same Latin as one would hear in the city of
Rome. It is clear that modern Imperialist states have much to learn
from the methods which Rome employed so successfully in
furthering the use of her language by subject races. Lord Cromer
regrets the fact that acquaintance with the tongue of the ruling
people often becomes in modern times a weapon which is turned
against that people. In the Roman provinces it conferred distinction,
opened the way to fuller rights and privileges and made the
possessor of it a stronger supporter of the Roman régime.
Nothing brings out better the great contrast between the
individualism of modern times and the solidarity of the Roman
commonwealth than a comparison of the methods followed now and
two thousand years ago in settling an undeveloped country.[28]
Reports of the great resources of Alaska come to Oregon and
Colorado and New York. Men from all quarters hurry there
indiscriminately. On some promising location a village grows up,
almost over night. It has no magistrates, no common council. Some
of the more public-spirited citizens gradually band themselves
together to preserve order and dispense a rude justice. In time a
municipal government is organized. The Roman method of
occupying a new territory was far different from this. It consisted
primarily in the establishment of colonies in the new region. The
most desirable locations for strategic and commercial reasons were
picked out, and a law was passed in the popular assembly
authorizing the establishment of a colony, and providing for
commissioners to found it. From three hundred to several thousand
colonists were then enrolled, and marched out in military order to the
chosen site. The commissioners assigned the allotments, drew up a
charter for the new community, and appointed its first magistrates
and the members of the local senate. This compact and highly
organized community of Romans served as a military outpost and a
centre for the extension of Roman civilization. The complete
pacification and Romanization of Italy was largely due to the
influence of these colonies. More than four hundred and forty such
communities were established in Italy and the provinces. Modern
empires have much to learn from this feature of Roman policy, and it
would almost seem as if we were beginning to appreciate its value.
The State of California has in late years adopted a system of
colonization closely resembling the Roman. It selects a site, appoints
experts to subdivide the land, chooses the colonists carefully, and
sends the colony out under a board of directors. Under a measure
proposed by the United States Secretary of the Interior, Secretary
Lane, a year or two ago, but not yet adopted by the Congress,
similar settlements were to be established on government land by
the coöperation of the federal and state governments. An interesting
experiment along Roman lines, but under private auspices, was
made in July, 1921, when an organized band of selected colonists
set out from Brooklyn to found a settlement in Idaho, with the
coöperation of that state.[29] The advantages which the Roman plan
has over our ordinary method of settling a new region are apparent
at once.
A discussion of this feature of the policy which the Romans
followed in a newly acquired territory naturally leads us to speak of
their attitude toward native communities. Lord Cromer remarks that
the Roman provinces did not have self-government. It is true that
Spain and Gaul did not have their own legislatures and chief
magistrates, but the real administrative units with which Rome dealt
in making her arrangements were the city-states of Spain and Gaul,
and they had a large measure of self-government conferred on them
by their charters. In a province like Spain one finds communities in
all the different stages of advancement from the position of a
dependent village to a free city or a Roman colony, and one may well
ask if the Roman system was not a more practical one than ours. We
treat Porto Rico, for instance, as a unit. All the villages or cities in the
island are put on the same legal basis, no matter what the state of
civilization of the different towns may be. The Romans would have
granted the full rights of citizenship to one or two of them, and
advanced the others from their more lowly state as they became
more civilized and prosperous. In this way they held before native
communities a prize which those communities were always eager to
attain, and from the first century of our era we find one town after
another advancing to a fuller enjoyment of civic rights. The same
policy was applied to individuals. Roman citizenship was often
granted to selected persons in a community. Such a grant identified
the interests of these provincial leaders with those of Rome, and
enlisted their support for the Roman régime.
 The agencies which the Empire used so successfully in
Romanizing the provinces, that is to say the establishment of law
and order, the retention of local self-government, the liberal grants of
citizenship to qualified individuals and cities, the development of a
good civil service, the building of roads, the construction of public
works, the introduction of the Latin language and of Roman law, and
the unifying influence in the later period of the Church, engendered a
feeling of solidarity throughout the Western World, which was one of
the most valuable legacies handed down by the Romans to later
times. Even Claudian, the last important Roman poet, writing after
the crushing defeat of Valens by the barbarians at Adrianople, saw
clearly that, in spite of all the disasters which had overtaken Rome,
the sense of unity still persisted throughout the Western World. He
writes in sorrow of the goddess, Roma:
“Her voice is weak, and slow her steps; her eyes
Deep sunk within; her cheeks are gone; her arms
Are shrivelled up with wasting leanness,”
but at another moment he cries triumphantly: “We who drink of the
Rhone and the Orontes are all one nation.” The feeling which
Claudian expresses persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The
German states in Italy recognized it by putting the portrait of the
Eastern Emperor on their coins. As Poole remarks in his Illustrations
of the History of Mediaeval Thought: “The Empire of Charlemagne
was no mere resuscitation of the extinct empire of the West. It was
the continuation of that universal empire, whose seat Constantine
had established at Byzantium, but whose existence there was now
held to have terminated by the succession of a woman, the empress
Irene.... The empire, therefore, went back to its rightful seat, and its
title devolved on Charlemagne.” All the minor rulers also throughout
the civilized parts of Europe thought of their authority as coming to
them from the Roman Empire. This feeling of unity was kept up by
the use of the old Roman highways of commerce, by the
employment of the Latin language as the lingua franca of Europe, by
the Church, and by the continued use of Roman law. Roman law in
particular was a stabilizing influence for many centuries after the
dissolution of the Empire. In the East and in the portions of Italy
controlled by Justinian’s successors the Code of Justinian was in
force. Roman law entered largely also into the Breviary of Alaric, the
laws of the Burgundians, the edict of Theodoric, and the French
capitularies. The law of Justinian was taught in the schools of Rome
and Ravenna without much interruption from the sixth to the eleventh
century, and with the revival of commerce which followed the
Crusades, there was a vigorous development of Roman mercantile
law. After the tenth century “the trend was toward unity within certain
areas and the political separation of these great areas from each
other.” This drift toward nationalism reached its climax at the time of
the Reformation. The spirit of a larger unity, which earlier centuries
had taken over from the Roman Empire, disappeared in great
measure, but the longing for it and the need of it and the knowledge
that it once existed and may be called to life again, find expression
today in the organization of the League of Nations. How disastrous
has been its displacement by the present intense nationalistic spirit
is recognized on all sides. It would almost seem as if Philip Kerr, who
had served as Confidential Secretary of Lloyd George at the Peace
Conference in Paris, was thinking of the irreparable loss which
Europe has suffered in this respect, when he said in his address at
the Williamstown Conference in 1922: “What is the fundamental
cause of war? I do not say the only cause of war, but the most active
and constant cause. It is not race or religion or color or nationality or
despotism, or progress, or any of the causes usually cited. It is the
division of humanity into separate states. The proposition which I am
concerned to establish today is the division of humanity into separate
states, each owing loyalty to itself, each recognizing no law higher
than its own will, each looking at every problem from its own point of
view, which is the fundamental cause of war.” Rome welded the
particularism of the ancient Mediterranean world into the unity of her
Empire. Only by a similar recognition of the solidarity of the interests
of all civilized peoples can we hope to emerge from the conditions
which threaten us today.
 III. SOME POLITICAL AND SOCIAL
PROBLEMS COMMON TO THE
ROMANS AND TO MODERN PEOPLES
The political and social problems which confronted Rome are
those which America, England, and France face today, and nothing
brings out more clearly the close relation which our civilization bears
to hers than the identity of these ancient and modern problems. In no
respect may we profit more by a study of her history than in
contemplating the means which Rome employed in solving them.
Her successes may guide us, and her failures warn us. Some of the
difficulties which beset her have come to the surface in discussing
certain topics in the two preceding chapters, and of the others we
can speak briefly of only a few, and mainly by way of illustration.

1. The Color and the Labor Questions

Two of our most serious social and political questions do not come
to the surface in Roman history, at least not in the form in which they
present themselves today. I mean the “color question” and the labor
question. Lord Cromer in the book to which reference has already
been made ventures the opinion that “antipathy based on differences
of colour is a plant of comparatively recent growth.” He connects its
development with the fact that in modern times the white man has
enslaved only the black man. Out of this relation the hostility of the
two races has developed, and has extended its scope so as to
determine in some measure the attitude of the white man toward the
brown and yellow man. The Roman had both white and black slaves.
All foreigners were on the same plane below himself. Consequently
he did not have that difficulty in dealing with the dark races which
some modern nations experience.
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