ROME IN AFRICA. 155 



provinces, ranging along the coast from Tripoli to 

 Tangiers. Egypt was made a province, with the 

 tropical line for its southern frontier. The oasis of 

 Cyrene, with its fields of assafoetida, was a middle 

 station between the two. But still the history of 

 Northern Africa arid the history of Egypt remain dis- 

 tinct. The Roman Empire, though held together for 

 a time by strong and skilful hands, was divided by 

 customs and modes of thought arising out of language, 

 into the Greek and Latin worlds. In the countries 

 which had been civilised by the Romans, Latin had 

 been introduced. In the countries which, before the 

 Roman conquest, had been conquered by Alexander, the 

 Greek language maintained its ground. Greece, Mace- 

 donia, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Cyrene belonged 

 to the Greek world : Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Africa 

 belonged to the Latin world. Greek was never spoken 

 in Roman Carthage except by a few merchants and 

 learned men. Latin was never spoken in Alexandria 

 except in the law courts and at Government House. 

 Whenever there was a partition of the empire, Egypt 

 was assigned to one emperor, Carthage to the other. 

 In the church history of Africa, the same phenomenon 

 may be observed. The church of Africa was the 

 daughter of the church of Rome, and was chiefly 

 occupied with questions of discipline and law. The 

 church of Egypt was essentially a Greek church ; it 

 was occupied entirely with definitions of the undefin- 

 able, and solutions of problems in theology. 



In one respect, however, the histories of Egypt and 

 Africa are the same. They were both of them corn- 

 fields, and both of them were ruined by the Romans. 

 In the early days of the empire there was a noble 

 reform in provincial affairs resembling that which 



