to protect it, formidable guards, the Roman legions.

To sum up, the romance of Antony and Cleopatra covers, at least in its
beginnings, a political treaty. With the marriage, Cleopatra seeks
to steady her wavering power; Antony, to place the valley of the Nile
under the Roman protectorate. How then was the famous romance born?
The actual history of Antony and Cleopatra is one of the most tragic
episodes of a struggle that lacerated the Roman Empire for four
centuries, until it finally destroyed it, the struggle between Orient
and Occident. During the age of Caesar, little by little, without any
one's realising it at first, there arose and fulfilled itself a fact
of the gravest importance; that is, the eastern part of the Empire had
grown out of proportion: first, from the conquest of the Pontus, made
by Lucullus, who had added immense territory in Asia Minor; then by
Pompey's conquest of Syria, and the protectorate extended by him over
all Palestine and a considerable part of Arabia. These new districts
were not only enormous in extension; they were also populous, wealthy,
fertile, celebrated for ancient culture; they held the busiest
industrial cities, the best cultivated regions of the ancient world,
the most famous seats of arts, letters, science, therefore their
annexation, made rapidly in few years, could but trouble the already
unstable equilibrium of the Empire. Italy was then, compared with
these provinces, a poor and barbarous land; because southern Italy was
ruined by the wars of preceding epochs, and northern Italy, naturally
the wealthier part, was still crude and in the beginning of its
development. The other western provinces nearer Italy were poorer and
less civilised than Italy, except Gallia Narbonensis and certain parts
of southern Spain. So that Rome, the capital of the Empire, came to
find itself far from the richest and most populous regions, among
territories poor and despoiled, on the frontiers of barbarism--in such
a situation as the Russian Empire might find itself to-day if it had a
capital at Vladivostok or Kharbin. You know that during the last years
of the life of Caesar it was rumoured several times that the Dictator
wished to remove the capital of the Empire; it was said, to Alexandria
in Egypt, to Ilium in the district where Troy arose. It is impossible
to judge whether these reports were true or merely invented by enemies
of Caesar to damage him; at any rate, true or false, they show t