o 
a 
ot. Lae 
‘The early Mistress of the World. 13 
The east and the west contributed to her greatness. The prov- 
inces which became tributary to her enjoyed, in healthfulness 
and fertility of soil, in variety of vegetal and mineral products, 
and in natural facilities for transportation and distribution of 
exchangeable commodities, advantages that have not been pos: 
sessed in equal degree by any territory of like extent in the Old 
World or the New. From Mesopotamia came cotton and silk 
and from India precious stones; from Arabia the Blest came 
spices; grain came from Egypt and Sicily, elephants, lions and 
tigers for her colosseum and circus from Africa, gold and silver 
from Spain, iron, copper and tin from- England, gladiators from 
Gauland Germany. Even the harvests of Eeypt and the wealth 
of Asia could not forever supply the demands of the Roman 
emperor and support in idleness and luxury the people of Rome. 
Some of the countries from which Rome had long drawn its sup- 
plies became exhausted of their fertility and so diminished in 
productiveness as to be no longer capable of affording sustenance 
even to their own inhabitants, while others refused to be still 
longer subject to the despotic rule of Rome. Lands which from 
their abundance sustained a population scarcely inferior to that 
of the whole Christian world of the present day became entirely 
unproductive or at least capable of supporting only the few tribes 
which wander over their deserts. While this exhaustion of the 
national resources was going on the Gauls and Germans, taught 
the art of war by their conflicts with the Romans, once and yet 
again crossed the Alps and carried war into the heart of Italy. 
The Goths, Huns and Vandals, with hordes from the far-distant 
deserts of Tartary and Mongolia, poured through the fastnesses 
of the Alps, and Rome fell. 
To Rome we owe the idea of universal dominion, the merging 
of all nations into one, and the civil law. 
We have now finished our review of the nations of the Old 
World, and have shown that all nations pass through similar 
stages of progress from savagery to a more or less advanced state - 
of barbatism, and that beyond these stages nations have rarely 
if ever progressed without a change in their surroundings or 
contact with other peoples. Certain nations like Egypt, Arabia, 
and China had an early development, and since then have been 
persistent, but have made no progress, while other highly civ- 
ilized nations, like the Babylonians, Assyrians, Phenicians, 
