32 GEOGRAPHY. 



Osrhoene in the west (capital Edessa, now Orrlioa or Orfa) and Mesopotamia 

 proper, in the east, also called Mygdonia (capital Nisibis or Antiocha, now 

 Nisib). Arabia was divided by Ptolem^eus into A. Deserta, Petraea, and 

 Felix. The northern part, A. Petraea, alone was in possession of the Romans. 

 Here dwelt the Amalekites, Edomites or Idumaeans, the Moabites, Ammon- 

 ites, and Midianites. Petrasa was the capital city. 



Such was the extent and arrangement of the Roman E?npire under the 

 first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great (305-337 A. D.), who, in 330, 

 changed his residence from Rome to Constantinople, the ancient Byzantium, 

 thereby making the distinction into an eastern and a western Roman em- 

 pire. The first actual division of the empire took place under the emperor 

 Diocletian (284-305). Diocletian, in 285 A. D., took Maximian as his 

 colleague, who nominated Constantius Chlorus as associate, Diocletian nom-' 

 inating Galerius ; the empire had thus four rulers (from 291 A. D). Of 

 these, Diocletian governed all the eastern provinces beyond the Egagan Sea ; 

 Maximian took Italy, Africa, and the intermediate islands ; Galerius, Thrace 

 and Illyria ; and Constantius, Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Mauritania. To 

 the latter emperor succeeded his son Constantine the Great, in 306, who, in 

 312, after the victory over Maxentius, son of Maximian, became master of all 

 the western provinces excepting Mauritania and North Africa. In 323 he 

 conquered Licinius, and thereby came into possession of all the eastern pro- 

 vinces, and thus again united the whole empire under one sceptre. After his 

 death in 337 A. D., the empire was divided again among his sons Constantine 

 II., Constans, and Constantius 11. The latter was sole emperor from 353- 

 361, and to him succeeded Julian the Apostate to 363. In 394 A. D., Theo- 

 dosius the Great again united the empire, but shortly before his death divided 

 it among his sons Honorius and Arcadius, the former taking the western, and 

 the latter the eastern empire. This division was permanent. The former 

 empire (the capital of which, for a long time, was Ravenna) met with its 

 downfall in 476, by the irruption of innumerable hordes of barbarians who 

 swept over Europe towards the west and south. These consisted of the Tur- 

 cilingi, the Goths, the Heruli, the Alans, the Scyri, and the Rugi, with Odo- 

 acer, king of the Turcilingi, at their head : this prince then ruled the whole 

 of Italy. The last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, son of the general 

 Orestes, and by him elevated to the throne in 476 A. D., hardly attained to 

 the government ; his predecessor, Julius Nepos, the last recognised* emperor 

 of the western empire, died in 480, after which Odoacer became king of 

 Italy. The eastern Roman empire, also called the Byzantine or Greek 

 empire, fell away by degrees, but lingered out a miserable existence until 

 1492, when Constantinople, with the remains of the empire, fell into the 

 hands of the Asiatic Turks. 



2. Geography of the Middle Ages {Plates 11 and 12). 



In Plate 11 we present to our readers a map of Europe in the time of 

 Charlemagne. The empire of the Franks was the most powerful in 

 32 



