ers spread rapidly. In it
Roman settlers made themselves more at home. The aim of the better
classes of the natives was to render themselves as Roman as possible.
It is in the western part of the empire that you will find the names
which mark systematic Roman settlement and which often denote the work
of an emperor. Towns such as Saragossa (Caesarea Augusta), Aosta,
Augsburg, Autun (Augustodunum), and Augst are foundations of Augustus.
Hence the fact that Spain and Prance speak a Latin tongue at this day,
while no Latin was ever even temporarily the recognised language
between the southern Adriatic and the Euphrates.

This prime division made, let us now pass quickly round the empire,
making such brief observations as may appear most helpful as we go.

In the year 64 the south of Spain, the province of Baetica--of
which we may speak more familiarly as Andalusia--was prosperous
and peaceful, almost completely romanized and latinized. Many
of its inhabitants were true Latins, most had made themselves
indistinguishable from Latins. Along the river Guadalquivir there were
flourishing towns, chief among them being those now known as Seville
and Cordova. The whole region was one of rich pasture and tillage, and
from it the merchant ships from Cadiz brought to Rome cargoes of the
finest wool and of excellent olives and other fruits. The east of
Spain, with Tarragona for its capital, stood next in order for its
settled life and steady produce, including wine, salt fish and sauces,
while in the interior the finest steel--corresponding to the Bilbao
blades of more modern history--was tempered in the cold streams of the
hills above the sources of the Tagus. From Portugal came cochineal and
olives. In several parts of the peninsula--in Portugal, in the
Asturias, and near Cartagena--were mines of gold and silver, which had
been worked by the old Phoenicians and which the Romans had reopened.
The chief trouble of Spain, it may be interesting to learn, was the
rabbits, and against these there were no guns and no poison, but only
dogs, traps, and ferrets. In Gaul there is one province
long-established and fully romanized, with its capital at Narbonne,
and with flourishing Roman towns, which are now familiar under such
names as Aries and Nimes. This is a region over the coast of which the
culture of Greece had managed to stray, centuries before, through the
accident of a Greek colony having been founded at Marseilles. In this
province