THE story of Imperial Rome has been told frequently and impressively in our literature, and few chapters in the long chronicle of man’s deeds and failures have a more dramatic quality. Seven centuries before our era opens, when the greater part of Europe is still hidden under virgin¹ forests or repellent swamps, and the decaying civilizations of the East cast, as they die, their seed upon the soil of Greece, we see, in the grey mist of the legendary² period, a meagre people settling on one of the seven hills by the Tiber. As it grows its enemies are driven back, and it spreads confidently over the neighbouring hills and down the connecting valleys. It gradually extends its rule over other Italian peoples, bracing³ its arm and improving its art in the long struggle. It grows conscious of its larger power, and sends its legions eastward⁴, over the blue sea, to gather the wealth and culture of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Greece; and westward⁵ and northward⁶, over the white Alps, to sow the seed in Germany, Gaul, Britain, and Spain. A hundred years before the opening of the present era the tiny settlement on the Palatine has become the mistress of the world. Its eagles cross the waters of the Danube and the Rhine, and glitter in the sun of Asia and Africa. But, with the wealth of the dying East, it has inherited the germs of a deadly malady⁷. Rome, the heart of the giant frame, loses its vigour⁸. The strong2 bronze limbs look pale and thin; the clear cold brain is overcast⁹ with the fumes¹⁰ of wine and heated with the thrills of sense; and Rome passes,

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