And it is a striking thought that, as far as we can see, the two processes, of absorption in the Roman body and of separation from the Roman body, were actually going on at the same time. I have hinted at this already. It is certain, and it is one of the facts in all history which makes us most pause and think, that the work of incorporation of Greek states into the Roman body which began beyond Hadria in the later days of the third century before Christ and which had begun long before in Italy and Sicily, was by no means over in the fifth century after Christ. The history of Cherson alone shows it. That distant and long-lived outpost of Greece and ally of Rome cannot be looked on as fully passing from alliance into subjection till the ninth century had run a good part of its course. The work which began when Korkyra, Apollônia, and Epidamnos became Roman allies was not ended till the Roman power was divided for ever, and till a Frank Cæsar reigned in the West. The geographical position of Cherson secured her a practical freedom; to bring her into bondage would have needed an exertion of the full power of the Empire. But the relation which Cherson could really keep was for ages the formal relation of a crowd of cities whose liberties could be at any moment trampled under foot by the nearest proconsul. When were all these free cities, whose rights Trajan respected, each a little San Marino with the Roman Empire surrounding it, formally annexed to that Empire? Or were they ever formally annexed at all? Can any man tell the last day of that Athenian commonwealth which numbered Hadrian among its archons and Constantine among its generals? What if the Senate and People of Athens still went on in their old home after Honorius had striven to gather together at Arles something like a Senate and People of Southern Gaul? Most likely there is no date to be fixed in this and in a crowd of other cases. The old forms, the old feelings, died out so gradually that it would be impossible to say when the dependent commonwealth finally changed into the municipal town. When Theodoric was putting out edicts for Goths and Romans in Italy, Greek Senates and assemblies in Asia may still have been passing decrees in ancient form. One thing is plain; when Justinian shut up the University of Athens, the General, successor of Periklês, who acted as its Chancellor, must have found the more part of his duties slip away from him.