material civilization which promised to be eternal, and of which every Roman was proud.  There was a centralization of power in the Eternal City such as had never been seen before and has never been seen since,—­a solid Empire so large that the Mediterranean, which it enclosed, was a mere central lake, around the vast circuit of whose shores were temples and palaces and villas of unspeakable beauty, and where a busy population pursued unmolested its various trades.  There was commerce on every river which empties itself into this vast basin; there were manufactures in every town, and there were agricultural skill and abundance in every province.  The plains of Egypt and Mesopotamia rejoiced in the richest harvests of wheat; the hills of Syria and Gaul, and Spain and Italy, were covered with grape-vines and olives.  Italy boasted of fifty kinds of wine, and Gaul produced the same vegetables that are known at the present day.  All kinds of fruit were plenty and luscious in every province.  There were game-preserves and fish-ponds and groves.  There were magnificent roads between all the great cities,—­an uninterrupted highway, mostly paved, from York to Jerusalem.  The productions of the East were consumed in the West, for ships whitened the sea, bearing their precious gems, and ivory, and spices, and perfumes, and silken fabrics, and carpets, and costly vessels of gold and silver, and variegated marbles; and all the provinces of an empire which extended fifteen hundred miles from north to south and three thousand from east to west were dotted with cities, some of which almost rivalled the imperial capital in size and magnificence.  The little island of Rhodes contained twenty-three thousand statues, and Antioch had a street four miles in length, with double colonnades throughout its whole extent.  The temple of Ephesus covered as much ground as does the cathedral of Cologne, and the library of Alexandria numbered seven hundred thousand volumes.  Rome, the proud metropolis, had a diameter of eleven miles, and was forty-five miles in circuit, with a population, according to Lipsius, larger than modern London.  It had seventeen thousand palaces, thirty theatres, nine thousand baths, and eleven amphitheatres,—­one of which could seat eighty-seven thousand spectators.  The gilding of the roof of the capitol cost fifteen millions of our money.  The palace of Nero was more extensive than Versailles.  The mausoleum of Hadrian became the most formidable fortress of Mediaeval times.  And then, what gold and silver vessels ornamented every palace, what pictures and statues enriched every room, what costly and gilded and carved furniture was the admiration of every guest, what rich dresses decorated the women who supped at gorgeous tables of solid silver, whose very sandals were ornamented with precious stones, and whose necks were hung with priceless pearls and rubies and diamonds!  Paulina wore a pearl which, it is said, cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of our money.  All the