of perfection for the provinces as an extension of this system of government by experts. The Roman theory of the relation of the state and the church runs through a cycle. The king was both chief executive and chief priest of the people. When the republic was established, priestly and political functions were dissociated, although all religious matters having a political significance were left to the magistrate. Julius Caesar in his dictatorship united in his person again the functions of the chief magistrate and chief pontiff, and this precedent was followed by all the emperors. The Emperor therefore held somewhat the same place in the state religion as the Czar did in Russia before the Revolution, and as the King does in England. This assumption of religious authority by the political ruler was the first step toward the recognition of the Divine Right of the Emperor; and the practice of paying divine honors to him, which, as we have noticed in Chapter I, was introduced from the Orient, fostered the development of the theory. In European countries the Roman practice of uniting the spiritual and temporal powers has survived in the form of a state religion or in the control of ecclesiastical affairs which most states have assumed in some measure. The United States, in enforcing a complete separation of State and Church, stands almost alone among the Great Powers in not accepting the Roman tradition. One cannot bring to an end even a brief discussion of the influence which the executive and legislative branches of the Roman government have exerted on the political life of our own times without mentioning the remarkable revival which we have seen lately in Italian Fascismo, of the old Roman spirit and of certain Roman political institutions. In its purpose, its spirit, and its external form this movement revives pure Roman tradition. It began to attain its present great strength in the months immediately following the Armistice when there was a marked decline of national feeling and when disorder and class struggles were rife throughout Italy. It assumed the form of a great national movement when it broke the general strike of August 1, 1922, which threatened the orderly life of the whole nation. The Fascisti took this step after the government had failed to set the wheels of industry in motion again. The next step, the setting aside of parliamentary government and the assumption of the dictatorship by Signor Mussolini, the leader of the Fascisti, was inevitable. The whole course of events during the last six months of 1922 duplicates incidents common enough in early Roman history. Disorder arises throughout the peninsula or a great danger confronts the state. The ordinary methods of government are suspended, and a dictator is appointed to meet the emergency. The dictator in the olden time called the citizens to arms, just as Signor Mussolini assembled his one hundred and seventeen thousand