Epidemics. 265 



286 A.D., giving to his colleague the western portion of 

 the empire, himself retaining the east as his portion. 

 This 'independent rule and division of authority led his 

 successor to further embody the idea by material agency. 

 Hence sprung up, under Constantine the Great, the eastern 

 capital of the Roman world; and this capital remained, under 

 a long succession of events, as the capital of the Greek 

 empire till 1453, when Mahomet II. made the city of 

 Constantinople the future capital of the Ottoman empire, 

 which remains so to this day. 



But the majesty of Rome, though marred and reduced, 

 still retained a venerable and dignified position until the 

 persistent childhood of Arcadius and Honorius, the sons of 

 Theodosius the Great, by their puerile rule, neither aided 

 each other nor defended themselves, nor appreciated those 

 who did defend them, and so Rome lost her majesty and 

 authority at one blow; and in less than a century after 

 submitted to the sovereignty of Ravenna, in 568 A.D., as a 

 dependent city, as before stated. 



About this time an uneasiness began in the troubled sea 

 of Arabian nomad life, and the land of the desert began to 

 show symptoms of a restless tribal discontentedness ; perhaps 

 it is not far from fact to say that it began about 530 A.D. 

 Chemistry, medicine, algebra, and astronomy found amongst 

 its olive and dark tribes an attractive home. A blind 

 credulity, which first led idolatry to be stamped out of their 

 peninsula, drove them on to see in themselves a mightier 

 power than the spreading savour of that Gospel which for 

 three years was preached by the greatest of the apostles 

 Paul in their sandy plains, and which, with occasional 

 preachers or Jewish disciples, worked as a leaven for 

 centuries. But, in the might of their own individuality, and 

 in the assurance of their own Impostor, who performed all 

 his miracles in the night and in the dark, they began, in 



