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