The history of Rome is that of a municipality pushing its vigorous arms in all directions, extending its influence on every side, without suffering its own central power to be affected--without admitting any other city or country to share in its dominion; other cities were but her daughters, or her slaves, and her extensive provinces were but like so many vast suburbs encircling her walls. The chief magistrates in the Roman city were the chief magistrates in the Roman world. This phenomenon of a single municipal government administering the affairs of a wide surrounding territory, and of distant provinces and colonies, is the very type of ancient political civilisation: there is nothing like it in Europe, in modern times. London is a great municipality, but the power of its magistracy is confined within its own walls. If we connect with it the neighbouring city of Westminster, it derives considerable political importance from its being the locality where the national government is accustomed to meet; but, in this respect, its character is very different from Rome. It draws together the lines of influence which flow from the provinces, it receives and concentrates them: but the city of Rome was the centre of a system of absolute power, spreading its ramifications over the world. The former unites and gives intensity to what it receives from without--the latter propelled far and wide an influence which originated from within. Rome was the fountain of political power--London is but the focus. "A municipality like Rome," says Guizot, "had been able to conquer the world, but it was not so easy a task to govern and organize it. Thus when the work seemed consummated, when all the west, and a great part of the east, had fallen under the Roman sway, we find this prodigious accumulation of cities, of small states, instituted for isolation and independence, disunited, detached from each other, and slipping the noose, as it were, in all directions. This was one of the causes which led to the necessity of an empire."[1]