We might suppose him to examine, in the first place, the military position of the State, its probable enemies, its capacities for defence. He would note that only on its eastern boundary was there an organised military Power capable of meeting Rome on anything like equal terms, and this only in the regions adjacent to their common frontier. For the rest he would discover no civilised enemy along the southern boundary to the Atlantic or along its northern boundary from the Black Sea to the German Ocean. Warlike tribes indeed he would find in plenty: difficult to crush within the limits of their native forests and morasses, formidable it may be in a raid, but without political cohesion, military unity, or the means of military concentration;--embarrassing therefore rather than dangerous. If reminded of Varus and his lost legions, he would ask of what importance, in the story of a world-power could be the loss of a few thousand men surprised at a distance from their base amid the entanglements of a difficult and unknown country. Never, it would seem, was Empire more fortunately circumstanced for purposes of home defence. But (it might be thought) the burden of securing frontiers of such length, even against merely tribal assaults, though easy from a strictly military point of view, might prove too heavy to be long endured. Yet the military forces scattered through the Roman Empire, though apparently adequate in the days of her greatness would, according to modern ideas, seem hardly sufficient for purposes of police, let alone defence. An army corps or less was deemed enough to preserve what are now mighty kingdoms, from internal disorder and external aggression. And if we compare with this the contributions, either in the way of money or of men, exacted from the territories subject to Rome before the Empire came into being, or at any period of the world’s history since it dissolved away, the comparison must surely be entirely in favour of the Empire.