Greek Legacy. "Let others better mould the running mass / Of metals, and inform the breathing brass, / And soften into flesh a marble face; / Plead better at the bar; describe the skies, / And when the stars ascend, and when they rise. / But Rome! 'tis thine alone, with awful sway, / To rule mankind, and make the world obey. / Disposing peace and war they own majestic way; / To tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free; / These are imperial arts, and worthy of thee," (Vergil, Aeneid 6. 15-21). When Aeneas foretold Rome's contribution in these lines by Vergil, he was conceding that its genius would not be in the sciences but in governance. Vergil acknowledges that other cultures will be the better metallurgists, artists, mathematicians, astronomers, and lawyers. Vergil was born during the Late Republic, but the words that he chose for Aeneas's pronouncement were prophetic for the Imperial period that followed...