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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: as has been said, 'more clearly than the Romans themselves the
historical position of Rome,' and to discern with greater insight
than all other men could those two great resultants of ancient
civilisation, the material empire of the city of the seven hills,
and the intellectual sovereignty of Hellas.
Before his own day, he says, (12) the events of the world were
unconnected and separate and the histories confined to particular
countries. Now, for the first time the universal empire of the
Romans rendered a universal history possible. (13) This, then, is
the august motive of his work: to trace the gradual rise of this
Italian city from the day when the first legion crossed the narrow
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