Epidemics. 263 



far more than the contempt or even fear in which they held 

 their foe. So the effeminancy and spirit of servile obedience, 

 without regard to truth or honesty, were slowly but surely 

 crushing the nationality and independency of the Egyptians 

 and Asiatics during this epoch, from 750 to 100 B.C. 



But, whilst this spirit was spreading over the population 

 of Western Asia, a new era was coming over the nations to 

 the north of Acre, Greece, and Rome ; and, in a measure, 

 Carthage, further to the west of Africa, partook of a popular 

 and free or independent character. 



Not far from 750, Greece a little earlier, and Rome a little 

 later fix, by their own chronology of Olympiads and Anno 

 Urbis Conditas, the starting-points of their respective 

 dynasties. 



Rome lived for about 1,200 years, and ended by a pack of 

 roughs and a small people, the Heruli, under a daring and 

 sagacious leader, Odoacer. 475 A.D. 



Greece ended by the fall of Athens, under Sylla, 86 B.C. ; 

 but her chief power fell with Macedon, 168 B.C., or 82 years 

 before the fall of Athens, after a duration of about 600 to 680 

 years. 



Whatever remnant there was of Rome, as a part of the 

 old Roman Empire under Belisarius, the famous general 

 of Justinian, the final extinguisher of Rome, as a centre of 

 military power, was put on by the successor of Belisarius ; 

 for N arses created Ravenna as an appendage to the Eastern 

 Empire, under the title of Exarchate, 568 A.D., at which 

 time Rome was a province, or subjected to the authority of 

 the Exarchate of Ravenna, from which she emerged as an 

 ecclesiastical capital under Pepin and his son, Charlemagne. 



From 750 or rather 730 A.u.c. of Varro to 568 is 1,298 

 years, being a difference of about go years or more between 

 the fall of Rome, under Odoacer, and its final extinction as a 

 capital, under Narses, 567 or 568 A.D. 



