=Reason Why Rome Went Forth to Conquer.= Even more important in the development of its culture were the attacks from without to which it was constantly exposed. Even the lofty Alps did not prove impassable barriers to the barbarian hordes who were attracted by this fertile land. Ancient Italy, encircled by the sea and plentifully provided with open harbors on the east and south, was never free from the dread of foreign attack. Not until Rome had conquered the powerful nations living on even the most distant shores of the Mediterranean could she feel secure in her central position. It was this constant fear, as well as the influence of her commanding position, that made Rome in time the mistress of the Mediterranean. From the East she received a century or two later than Greece all that the old civilizations could give, both of good and evil. This inheritance she in turn gave to the western world toward which she faced and to which she belonged. Thus Rome was the great connecting link between the East and the West, between the ancient and the modern world. =Résumé.= The biblical world was, both in extent and point of time, identical with the ancient civilized world. The outlook of the biblical writers was at first limited to the eastern Mediterranean, but was gradually broadened until it included practically all the peoples living about the great inland sea. Similarly the life and faith of the Hebrews, at first local, became in time world-wide. Each of the ancient races followed the lines of development marked out by their geographical environment. Two civilizations--that of the Hebrews and that of the Greeks--lacking a suitable background for local growth and expansion, went forth to conquer and transform the life and thought and faith of all the world. [Illustration: PHOTO-RELIEF MAP OF PALESTINE] II THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PALESTINE =History of the Terms Palestine and Canaan.= The term Palestine, originally applied to the home of Israel's foes, the Philistines, was used by the Greeks as a designation of southern Syria, exclusive of Phœnicia. The Greek historian Herodotus was the first to employ it in this extended sense. The Romans used the same term in the form Palestina and through them the term Palestine has become the prevailing name in the western world of the land once occupied by the Israelites and their immediate neighbors on the east and west. The history of the older name Canaan (Lowland) is similar. In the Tell el-Amarna Letters, written in the fourteenth century B.C., Canaan is limited to the coast plains; but as the Canaanites, the Lowlanders, began to occupy the inland plains the use of the term was extended until it became the designation of all the territory from the Mediterranean to the Jordan and Dead Sea valley. It does not appear, however, to have ever been applied to the east-Jordan land.