274 Epidemics. 



For the first 200 years, or from 80 B.C. to 120 A.D., she 

 reigned; in glory, and acquired a high position for taste, 

 learning, and refinement, and wonderful organization and 

 legal administration. She now began to amalgamate in her 

 population and customs with many of the conquered nations, 

 and by 400 years, or more, after her new influx of greatness 

 and power, or about 320 A.D., she had attained the chief end 

 of her greatness ; and, during the next 240 years or so of 

 her existence as a political power, Rome declined and 

 rapidly sank under the gathering clouds of ignorance, sloth, 

 and bigotry. 



Scarcely did the old Roman provinces find that they were 

 free from the power and slavery of Rome, than a new 

 epidemic period commenced, and with it a nation arose to 

 the south of Greece and Rome, but not far distant, as a 

 centre, from Acre the illiterate, unorganized, and re- 

 verential servants to custom, which latter was the only basis 

 of real civilization then possessed by the Arabs. But the 

 nomad tribes of the land of the desert, or the Saracens, 

 sprang as a mighty host into teachers of faith and doctrine, 

 and admirers of abstract sciences, chemistry, algebra, 

 astronomy, and the humane science of medicine. With 

 discipline and courage they became arbitrators of the largest 

 portion of the old civilized world, and that, despite all the 

 previous knowledge, discipline, and arts of the nations 

 which held their conquered provinces for centuries before 

 them. 



A revolution so great and so lasting, for it ran out for 

 quite 640 years, is in itself the most singular illustration of 

 nations rising and falling with epidemic periods which 

 history unfolds, and in this instance very much in alliance 

 with its own gendered epidemic diseases small-pox and 

 measles. 



Its decay is as remarkable as its rise, and no usual 



