2 THE EOMAlSr EMPIRE. 



pride of the East, the pearl, tlie ruby, tHe sapphire, and the dia* 

 mond — though not unknown to the luxury of a people whose 

 conquests and whose wealth commanded whatever the habitable 

 world could contribute to augment the material splendor of their 

 social life — were scarcely native to the territory of the empire ; 

 but the comparative rarity of these gems in Europe at somewhat 

 earlier periods, was, perhaps, the very circumstance that led the 

 cunning artists of classic antiquity to enrich softer stones with en- 

 gravings that invest the common onyx and cornelian with a worth 

 surpassing, in cultivated eyes, the lustre of the most brilhant ori- 

 ental jewels. 



Of these manifold blessings the temperature of the air, the dis- 

 tribution of the rains, the relative disposition of land and water, 

 the plenty of the sea, the composition of the soil, and the raw 

 material of the primitive arts, were wholly gratuitous gifts. Yet 

 the spontaneous nature of Europe, of Western Asia, of Libya, 

 neither fed nor clothed the civihzed inliabitants of those prov- 

 inces. The luxuriant harvests of cereals that waved on every 

 field from the shores of the Rhine to the banks of the Nile, the 

 vines that festooned the hillsides of Syria, of Italy and of Greece, 

 the olives of Spain, the fruits of the gardens of the Hesperides, 

 the domestic quadrupeds and fowls known in ancient rural hus- 

 bandry — all these were original products of foreign climes, nat- 

 uralized in new homes, and gradually ennobled by the art of man, 

 while centuries of persevering labor were expelling the wild vege- 

 tation, and fitting the earth for the production of more generous 

 growths. Every loaf was eaten in the sweat of the brow. All 

 must be earned by toil. But toil was nowhere else rewarded by 

 80 generous wages ; for nowhere would a given amount of intelli- 

 gent labor produce so abundant, and, at the same time, so varied 

 returns of the good things of material existence. 



Physical Decay of the Territory of the Roma/n Empire. 



If we compare the present physical condition of the countries 

 of which I am speaking, with the descriptions that ancient his- 

 torians and geographers have given of their f ertihty and general 

 capability of ministering to human uses, we shall find that more 

 than one-haK their whole extent — not excluding the provinces 



