Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Studies in Christian History
Not be supplanted and a new order introduced without a Violent shock to the whole existing order of things. One who would give an exact picture of the civilised world of Augustusfs time, of its cities, its manners, its amusements - who could make it live again in the pages of history and render its modern equivalent - Would at the same time afford an explanation of its decay. The first impression left on us by such a sketch would no doubt be one of vast outward prosperity. N ever had life seemed more brilliant and more gay than in the first century of our era. N ever had the elements of dispeace and confusion seemed more utterly banished. Never had a civil Government reached more that centralisa tion of power which seemed to guarantee its perpetuity. The Roman peace brooded over all the quarters of the civilised world. The vast Roman State, stretching out its arms in all directions, was only the visible represen tation of the power of one man, who had absorbed all lesser powers and magistracies in his own person - who, through his ministers and agents, was present in every part of its remote dominions, conscious of the minutest actions, and of the slightest throb of life, powerful ever to reward or punish. The only real unity indeed existing in that immense dominion was expressed by the Autocrat's absolute will, and by the supreme power of the conquering people. All the subject-races re tained, no doubt, to some extent, their own individuality, more so in the East than in the West. The picture of the empire at this period is a varied and majestic one. Ou the very outskirts of the Roman power one might come on rich and populous cities. Seleucia, on the Tigris, rebuilt and enlarged, occupied, after the capital, the most important position in point of population; Antioch came next. It had lately been laid out by.
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