Italy, naturally the wealthier part, was still crude and in the beginning of its development. The other western provinces nearer Italy were poorer and less civilised than Italy, except Gallia Narbonensis and certain parts of southern Spain. So that Rome, the capital of the Empire, came to find itself far from the richest and most populous regions, among territories poor and despoiled, on the frontiers of barbarism--in such a situation as the Russian Empire might find itself to-day if it had a capital at Vladivostok or Kharbin. You know that during the last years of the life of Cæsar it was rumoured several times that the Dictator wished to remove the capital of the Empire; it was said, to Alexandria in Egypt, to Ilium in the district where Troy arose. It is impossible to judge whether these reports were true or merely invented by enemies of Cæsar to damage him; at any rate, true or false, they show that public opinion was beginning to concern itself with the "Eastern peril"; that is, with the danger that the seat of empire must be shifted toward the Orient and the too ample Asiatic and African territory, and that Italy be one day uncrowned of her metropolitan predominance, conquered by so many wars. Such hear-says must have seemed, even if not true, the more likely, because,
