li, Africa proper, where once
ruled mighty Carthage, the colony of Tyre, and where the Phoenician or
Punic language still survived among the population of mixed
Phoenicians and Berbers. Here, too, are wide and luxuriant stretches
of corn-land, upon which Rome depends only next, if next, to those of
Alexandria. Further west are the Berber tribes of Mauretania, governed
by Rome but hardly yet fully assimilated into the Roman system.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.--EMBLEM OF ALEXANDRIA.]

In the Mediterranean Sea lie Crete, a place which had now become of
little importance; Sicily, as much Greek as Roman, fertile in crops
and possessed of many a splendid Greek temple and theatre; Sardinia,
an unhealthy island infested by banditti, and employed as a sort of
convict station, producing some amount of grain and minerals; and
Corsica, which bore much the same character for savagery as it did in
times comparatively recent, and which had little reputation for any
product but its second-rate honey and its wax. The Balearic Islands
were chiefly noted for their excellence in the art of slinging for
painters' earth, and for breeding snails for the Roman table.

[Illustration: FIG. 10.--EMBLEM OF ROME. From the Column of Antoninus
at Rome.]

It remains to say that the feeling of local pride was very strong in
the rival towns of the empire. Each gloried in its distinguishing
commerce and natural advantages, and the chosen emblems of the greater
cities set forth their boasts with much artistic ingenuity. Thus
Antioch is symbolised by a female figure seated on a rock, crowned
with a turreted diadem, and holding in her hand a bunch of ears of
corn, while her foot is planted on the shoulder of a half-buried
figure representing the river Orontes. Alexandria, with her Horn of
Plenty, her Egyptian fruits, and the representations of her elephants,
asps, and panthers, as well as of her special deities, appears in
relief upon a silver vessel found at Boscoreale near Pompeii and here
reproduced.

Such in brief was the Roman Empire. How all this empire was governed,
what was meant by emperor, governor, taxation, and justice, is matter
for other chapters.

CHAPTER IV

THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM: EMPEROR, SENATE, KNIGHTS, AND PEOPLE

We have seen, and succinctly traversed, the extent of the Roman world.
The next step is to consider, as tersely as possible, its system of
government and administration about the year 64. This task is not only
enti