point of the Hunnish terror, putting the fear of death on even the worst of the barbarians that had wrecked the Roman world.  In 476, the pretense of a Western Empire was abandoned.—­So now to follow the great march of the cycles eastward; with this warning:  that next week we shall glance at a little backwash in the other direction, and see the disembodied soul of this now closed phase of human culture ‘go west.’

The split with Rome was altogether of value to the Eastern empire of Constantinople.  That empire lasted, from the time of Arcadius to that of Constantine IX and Mohammed the Conqueror, “one thousand and fifty-eight years,” says Gibbon, “in a state of premature and perpetual decay.”—­A statement which, taken as an example of Gibbonese, is altogether delightful; but for the true purposes of history it may need a little modification.  The position of this Byzantine Empire was a curious one:  European in origin, mainly West-Asian in location.  Its situation permitted it to last on so long into the West-Asian manvantara; its origin doomed that long survival to be, for the most part, devoid of the best characteristics of life.  Yet during most of the European pralaya it was far and away the richest and most civilized power in Christendom; and, except during the reigns of extraordinary kings in the west, like Charlemagne, the strongest too.  It specialized in military science; and the well-trained Byzantine soldiers and highly scientific generals had little to fear, as a rule, from the rude energies and huge stature of the northern and western hordes.  But culture remained there in the sishta state, and could do nothing until it was transplanted.  There were cycles:  weaknesses and recoveries; on the whole its long life-period matters very little to history; it only became of great importance when it died.

The reason why it did not succumb when Rome did was that the tides of life in the whole empire had long been flowing eastward, and were now gathered there almost wholly:  there was much more activity in the east; there were much bigger cities, and a much greater population.  So that part was harder to penetrate and conquer:  there was more resistance there.  The barbarian deluge flowed down where it might flow down most easily:  following, as deluges and everything else gifted with common sense always do, the lines of least resistance.  The way through Gaul and Spain was quite open; the way into Italy nearly so;—­but the way into Asia was blocked by Constantinople.  That city is naturally one of the strongest in the world, in a military sense; and, you would say, inevitably the capital of an empire.  If Dardanus had had a little more intuition, and had founded his Troy on the Golden Horn instead of on the Dardanelles, Anax andron Agamemnon and his chalcho-chitoned Achaeans, I dare say, would have gone home to Greece much sadder and wiser men;—­or more probably, not at all.  But Troy is near enough to that inevitable