Western Rome--he only of all earthly potentates, past or to come, could be
said to reign as a _monarch_, that is, as a solitary king. He was not
the greatest of princes, simply because there was no other but himself.
There were doubtless a few outlying rulers, of unknown names and titles
upon the margins of his empire, there were tributary lieutenants and
barbarous _reguli_, the obscure vassals of his sceptre, whose homage
was offered on the lowest step of his throne, and scarcely known to him
but as objects of disdain. But these feudatories could no more break the
unity of his empire, which embraced the whole _oichomeni_;--the total
habitable world as then known to geography, or recognised by the muse of
History--than at this day the British empire on the sea can be brought
into question or made conditional, because some chief of Owyhee or
Tongataboo should proclaim a momentary independence of the British
trident, or should even offer a transient outrage to her sovereign flag.
Such a _tempestas in matula_ might raise a brief uproar in his little
native archipelago, but too feeble to reach the shores of Europe by an
echo--or to ascend by so much as an infantine _susurrus_ to the ears
of the British Neptune. Parthia, it is true, might pretend to the dignity
of an empire. But her sovereigns, though sitting in the seat of the great
king, (_o basileus_,) were no longer the rulers of a vast and polished
nation. They were regarded as barbarians--potent only by their standing
army, not upon the larger basis of civic strength; and, even under this
limitation, they were supposed to owe more to the circumstances of their
position--their climate, their remoteness, and their inaccessibility
except through arid and sultry deserts--than to intrinsic resources, such
as could be permanently relied on in a serious trial of strength between
the two powers. The kings of Parthia, therefore, were far enough from
being regarded in the light of antagonist forces to the majesty of Rome.
And, these withdrawn from the comparison, who else was there--what prince,
what king, what potentate of any denomination, to break the universal