STATE OF THE EMPIRE.--(1) _Its Extent_. The Roman Empire extended from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, a distance of more than three thousand miles, and from the Danube and the English Channel--later, from the friths of Scotland--to the cataracts of the Nile and the African desert. Its population was somewhere from eighty millions to one hundred and twenty millions. It was composed of the _East_ and the _West_, a distinction that was not simply geographical, but included deeper characteristic differences. (2) _The Provinces_. The provinces were divided (27 B.C.) into the _proconsular_, ruled by the Senate, and the _imperial_, ruled by the legates of Augustus. His authority, however, was everywhere supreme. Over all the empire extended the system of Roman law, the rights and immunities of which belonged to Roman citizens everywhere. (3) _The Two Languages_. It was a _Romano-Hellenic_ monarchy. Local dialects remained; but the _Greek_ language was the language of commerce, and of polite intercourse in all places. The Greek tongue and Hellenic culture were the common property of the nations. The _Latin_ was prevalent west of the Adriatic. It was adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, and in other provinces. It was the language of courts and of the camp. (4) _Journeys and Trade_. The Roman territory was covered with a net-work of magnificent roads. Journeys for purposes of trade and from motives of curiosity were common. Religious pilgrimages to famous shrines were frequent. The safety and peace which followed upon the civil wars stimulated traffic and intercourse between the different regions united under the imperial government. LITERATURE.--The Augustan period was the golden age of Roman literature. Literary works were topics of conversation in social circles. Libraries were collected by the rich. The shops of booksellers were places of resort for cultivated people. There were active and liberal patrons of poets and of other men of letters. Such patrons were _Maecenas_, _Horace's_ friend, and _Augustus_ himself. Then favors were repaid by praises and flattery, as we see in the verses of _Horace_, _Virgil_, and especially of _Ovid_. The lectures of grammarians and rhetoricians, of philosophers and physicians, were largely attended. Literary societies were formed. Periodicals and bulletins were published, in which the proceedings of the Senate and of the courts were recorded. The business of _scribes_--copyists of manuscripts--engaged a vast number of persons. WRITINGS OF CICERO.--Cicero (106-43), in his philosophic writings, reproduces the thoughts and speculations of the Greek sages, in the manner of a cultivated and appreciative student. His speeches and his epistles, especially those to his friend, _Atticus_, lift the veil, as it were, and afford us most interesting glimpses of the civil and social life of the Romans of that day.