Present-day Rome has much in common with ancient Rome. The main difference between them is, of course, this: While ancient Rome, dominating the entire world then known to humanity, and forming the centre of the Mediterranean civilization, was the world power of the time, modern Rome holds neither the political position of ancient Rome nor is it the representative and bearer of the Mediterranean civilization. The predominance of Mediterranean civilization has gone with the last great Doges of Venice, and modern Rome is no longer the centre of gravitation of civilized humanity that ancient Rome was two thousand years ago. In the course of the last millenium, the centre of civilization has shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. It is the Atlantic civilization that is supreme today. The whole terrible fight that is going on today in all parts of the world is not a fight about the Mediterranean and its supremacy, but it is a struggle for the Atlantic and its predominance--and, in this struggle, Rome is no longer playing a leading part. In the course of the fight about the Mediterranean, Judea was destroyed and the whole Semitic race nearly annihilated. The wars of Rome against Carthage, the people of which spoke Hebrew and formed a branch of the Aramaic family of nations, were fought with the only object of preserving Roman supremacy in the Mediterranean. The fight for the Atlantic, however, has already resulted in the re-establishment of one Semitic nation--the Arab--and will probably also result in the re-establishment of old Judea. That is where the difference between the fight for the Mediterranean, fought by ancient Rome, and the fight for the Atlantic, in which modern Rome participates, comes in. The ancient Mediterranean Rome was not only imperialistic to the core, but universalistic as well. The chief aim and plan of ancient Rome was to subjugate the whole world, then known to humanity, with a view to dominating it. The idea of a universal monarchy at the expense of the independence and freedom of other nations first originated in ancient Rome. Rome of today, which takes part in the fight for the Atlantic, is imperialistic, although no longer striving for political universalism and world domination; it announces that it stands today for the preservation of the individuality of the small nations.