CHAP. 1.
----eastern, the other the western division of the Mediterranean; and to each of the squadrons he attached a body of several thousand marines. Besides these two ports, which may be considered as the principal seats of the Roman navy, a very considerable force was stationed at Frejus, on the coast of Provence, and the Euxine was guarded by forty ships, and three thousand soldiers. To all these we add the fleet which preserved the communication between Gaul and Britain, and a great number of vessels constantly maintained on the Rhine and Danube, to harass the country, or to intercept the passage of the barbarians[1]. If Amount of establishment.we review this general state of the imperial forces ; of the Cavalry as well as infantry ; of the legions, the auxiliaries, the guards, and the navy; the most liberal computation will not allow us to fix the entire establishment by sea and by land at more than four hundred and fifty thousand men ; a military power which, however formidable it may seem, was equalled by a monarch of the last century, whose kingdom was confined within a single province of the Roman empire[2].
View of the provinces of the Roman empire.We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the strength which supported the power of Hadrian and the Antonines. We shall now endeavour, with clearness and precision, to describe the provinces once united under their sway, but at present divided into so many independent and hostile states.
Spain. Spain, the western extremity of the empire of Europe, and of the ancient world, has in every age invariably preserved the same natural limits ; the Pyrenean mountains, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally divided between two sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into three provinces, Lusitania, Baetica, and Tarraconensis. The kingdom of Portugal now fills the place