In order to obtain a clear notion of the state of Europe before the universal prevalence of the Roman power, the whole region is to be divided into two principal parts, which we shall call Northern and Southern Europe.  The northern part is everywhere separated from the southern by immense and continued chains of mountains.  From Greece it is divided by Mount Haemus; from Spain by the Pyrenees; from Italy by the Alps.  This division is not made by an arbitrary or casual distribution of countries.  The limits are marked out by Nature, and in these early ages were yet further distinguished by a considerable difference in the manners and usages of the nations they divided.

If we turn our eyes to the northward of these boundaries, a vast mass of solid continent lies before us, stretched out from the remotest shore of Tartary quite to the Atlantic Ocean.  A line drawn through this extent, from east to west, would pass over the greatest body of unbroken land that is anywhere known upon the globe.  This tract, in a course of some degrees to the northward, is not interrupted by any sea; neither are the mountains so disposed as to form any considerable obstacle to hostile incursions.  Originally it was all inhabited but by one sort of people, known by one common denomination of Scythians.  As the several tribes of this comprehensive name lay in many parts greatly exposed, and as by their situation and customs they were much inclined to attack, and by both ill qualified for defence, throughout the whole of that immense region there was for many ages a perpetual flux and reflux of barbarous nations.  None of their commonwealths continued long enough established on any particular spot to settle and to subside into a regular order, one tribe continually overpowering or thrusting out another.  But as these were only the mixtures of Scythians with Scythians, the triumphs of barbarians over barbarians, there were revolutions in empire, but none in manners.  The Northern Europe, until some parts of it were subdued by the progress of the Roman arms, remained almost equally covered with all the ruggedness of primitive barbarism.

The southern part was differently circumstanced.  Divided, as we have said, from the northern by great mountains, it is further divided within itself by considerable seas.  Spain, Greece, and Italy are peninsulas.  By these advantages of situation the inhabitants were preserved from those great and sudden revolutions to which the Northern world had been always liable; and being confined within a space comparatively narrow, they were restrained from wandering into a pastoral and unsettled life.  It was upon one side only that they could be invaded by land.  Whoever made an attempt on any other part must necessarily have arrived in ships of some magnitude, and must therefore have in a degree been cultivated, if not by the liberal, at least by the mechanic arts.  In fact, the principal colonies-which we find these countries to have received were sent from Phoenicia,