ABSTRACT
Rome governed the world. Neither before nor since has any other nation occupied a wholly equivalent position, exercising one function exclusively in the comity of nations. The isolation of a function is the only means by which its nature can be determined. Rome was the political power crystallized out of the social solution for the first time, and thus fixed as a historical exhibit of the nature of government. What it reveals is a peculiar negative; during her regime, Rome contributed nothing to the actual productive processes.
