music, literature, the drama flourish. The classes are sharply divided—they clash—the class struggle is on, with all its bitterness. Wealth concentrates; power centralizes; the family is settled in its form; and religion, changing from the worship of the many gods to the adoration of only one, pushes that god off the earth into a heaven in the great beyond.
ROMAN CIVILIZATION
The very interesting periods of Barbarism and Chattel Slavery were the parent periods of Feudalism. They existed alongside of each other for a great period of time, but with only a limited connection between them. Egyptian, Assyrian, Grecian and Roman slave civilizations flourished along the shores of the Mediterranean, while across the Black Forest and beyond the Alps, the Slavic, Germanic and Celtic tribes worked out their communal destinies.
The social system of Rome was quite complex. Patricians, knights, plebeians, adopted citizens, freedmen and slaves mingled in a busy hive of industry, trade and intrigue; each class actively defending itself against the others. The highly centralized government, representing the proud and wealthy Patrician class held despotic sway, and underneath it all were the slaves. So numerous did these become that, at one time, they were required to be dressed like the citizens, for fear they would realize their own numbers and strength, and destroy the Empire.
A combination of wage slavery, serfdom and chattel slavery was at the base of the productive system. The workers performed their tasks by hand labor and with comparatively simple tools; though there were a few simple machines operated by men and horses.
One great social feature of the Roman system of personal relationships was the "Patrocinium," or relation of Patron and Client—a relation which, in an altered form, was practised during Feudalism and extends even into our own time in the form of the Italian "Padroni" Sys-