In this book the chapters treat public and private law, the beginnings of imperial administration, the economy of Rome and Italy and the growth of the city of Rome, and finally intellectual life and religion. The portrait is of a society not in decay or decline, but, on the contrary, growing up so fast in international predominance and material prosperity, in cosmopolitanism of population and Hellenization of ideas, as finally to tumble over its own feet. It was destined only to be rescued at the price of political transformation.
