W.E.A. LECTURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 119, 22 April 1925, Page 5

W.E.A. LECTURE.

OUTSTANDING FIGURES IN HISTORY. JULIUS CAESAR. The usual weekly public lecture (under the W.E.A. scheme) was given at Rawlins’s tea rooms last evening, Mr J. Carter, presiding over a good attendance of students and visitors.

Mr A. Ernest Alander, tho lecturer, devoted the evening to an outline of tho career, and an attempt to estimate the real significance of Julius Caesar. He began by describing the growth of the Roman Empire during and after tlie Punic Wars stressing the fact that the whole of this empire was still subject to the senate of the city of Rome. The lecturer next discussed the manner in which the provinces were administered, and went on to describe tho growth of another new force in imperial politics—the Legions, which became quite independent of, and often quite hostile to, tlie Senate and peoplo of Rome. Then followed an outline of Julius Caesar’s career, and sketch of his character. First, there was Caesar tho democratic politician in ltoifie; then Caesar the brilliantly successful general and provincial governor, conquering Gaul (modern France and Belgium), organising it, and converting it into the most peaceful and prosperous province of the Roman Empire. Finally camo the Civil War, ending in Caesar’s victory over the Senatorial party, and a revlutionary change in the imperial constitution.

The Senate of the City of Rome, sai«l the lecturer, could not understand conditions in the provinces, and was therefore hopelessly unfitted to continue to act as the supreme authority in the Empire. It was a purely local-paro-chial-body, in constitution, in interests, and in outlook.

The chief historical significance of Caesar lies in the fact that ho converted the Roman Empire from an empire of tho old-fashioned sort, into an empire more of the nature of the British Empire to-day. Hitherto it had “belonged to,” been absolutely subject to, the city of Rome. Under the Caesars, Rome was reduced to tho position of being merely the capital of an empire, tho provinces of which enjoyed a largo measure of self-government. Under the Caesars, tho province of Gaul, for instance, no longer belonged to the city of Rome —any more than the city of Rome belonged to the province of Gaul. They belonged to each other, and both alike were subject to Caesar, who represented the Empire as a whole. Mr Mander dealt also with the other important reforms effected by Caesar, and gave an account of his death and its consequences. It was annuonced that next Tuesday’s subject would bo “Pliny the Younger, and Roman life under the Caesars.”