Comparison is often made between the Empire of Britain and the Empire of Rome.  When judged relatively to the effect on all modern civilization, the Empire of Rome is of course the more important, simply because all the nations of Europe and their offshoots in other continents trace back their culture either to the earlier Rome by the Tiber, or the later Rome by the Bosphorus.  The Empire of Rome is the most stupendous fact in lay history; no empire later in time can be compared with it.  But this is merely another way of saying that the nearer the source the more important becomes any deflection of the stream’s current.  Absolutely, comparing the two empires one with the other in point of actual achievement, and disregarding the immensely increased effect on other civilizations which inhered in the older empire because it antedated the younger by a couple of thousand years, there is little to choose between them as regards the wide and abounding interest and importance of their careers.

In the world of antiquity each great empire rose when its predecessor had already crumbled.  By the time that Rome loomed large over the horizon of history, there were left for her to contend with only decaying civilizations and raw barbarism.  When she conquered Pyrrhus, she strove against the strength of but one of the many fragments into which Alexander’s kingdom had fallen.  When she conquered Carthage, she overthrew a foe against whom for two centuries the single Greek city of Syracuse had contended on equal terms; it was not the Sepoy armies of the Carthaginian plutocracy, but the towering genius of the House of Barca, which rendered the struggle for ever memorable.  It was the distance and the desert, rather than the Parthian horse-bowmen, that set bounds to Rome in the east; and on the north her advance was curbed by the vast reaches of marshy woodland, rather than by the tall barbarians who dwelt therein.  During the long generations of her greatness, and until the sword dropped from her withered hand, the Parthian was never a menace of aggression, and the German threatened her but to die.

On the contrary, the great expansion of England has occurred, the great Empire of Britain has been achieved, during the centuries that have also seen mighty military nations rise and flourish on the continent of Europe.  It is as if Rome, while creating and keeping the empire she won between the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan, had at the same time held her own with the Nineveh of Sargon and Tiglath, the Egypt of Thothmes and Rameses, and the kingdoms of Persia and Macedon in the red flush of their warrior-dawn.  The Empire of Britain is vaster in space, in population, in wealth, in wide variety of possession, in a history of multiplied and manifold achievement of every kind, than even the glorious Empire of Rome.  Yet, unlike Rome, Britain has won dominion in every clime, has carried her flag by conquest and settlement to the uttermost