were killed at Bosworth Field, nor how many ships were engaged at the
battle of Trafalgar.

But you _must_ know how England became England, how France came to be
France, and Germany Germany. And yet you cannot know one of these things
unless you know about the Roman Empire too, which like an old dead root
underlies the greater part of Europe.

Now I am going to tell you about the Ottoman Empire, or Turkey. And yet I
find I must begin by talking about other things, and chiefly about that
old dead Roman Empire, with which everything else is tangled up.

It was during the reign of Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor, that
Christ was born. So the Roman Empire was always just the age of the
Christian era.

For the first three centuries, and while it was fiercely fighting the new
Christianity, its power seemed invincible. It spread upon every side,
toward the East as far as Asia, and in the West as far as the Atlantic.
Gaul (or France and Spain) and Britain were gathered in by this insatiable
power.

But the Romans could not conquer Germany. Instead of that, the Germans or
Goths were always pressing down into Italy, and even thundered at the
gates of Rome.

So harassed were the Romans by these terrible barbarians that at last they
could no longer spare their legions in distant provinces. So Britain was
dropped. And then, as she grew more decrepit and feeble, France got away
from her too, and the Germans (who were already in Spain) took that fair