At the period then with which we are to deal, the Roman Empire
included the countries now known as Holland, Belgium, France, Spain
and Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, the southern half of the Austrian
Empire, Greece, Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, Egypt,
Tripoli and Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, and also the southern two-thirds
of England. Within these borders there prevailed that greatest
blessing of the Roman rule, the _pax Romana_, or "Roman peace."
Whatever defects may be found in the Roman administration, on whatever
abstract grounds the existence of such an empire may be impugned, it
cannot be questioned that for at least two centuries the whole of this
vast region enjoyed a general reign of peace and security such as it
never knew before and has never known since. That peace meant also
social and industrial prosperity and development. It meant an immense
increase in settled population and in manufactures, and an immense
advance--particularly in the West--in civilised manners and
intellectual interests.

Peoples and tribes which had been at perpetual war among themselves or
with some neighbour were reduced to quietude. Communities which had
been liable to sudden invasion and to all manner of arbitrary changes
in their conditions of life, in their burdens of taxation, and even in
their personal freedom, now knew exactly where they stood, and, for
the most part, perceived that they stood in a much more tolerable and
a distinctly more assured position than before. If there must
sometimes be it would be the Roman tyrant, and he, as we shall find,
affected them but little. All irresponsible local tyrannies, whether
of kings or parties, were abolished.

On the high seas within the empire you might voyage with no fear
whatever of pirates. If you looked for pirates you must look beyond