Still the Imperial coronation of Charles is one of the great landmarks both of history and of historical geography. The whole political system of Europe was changed when the Old Rome cast off its formal allegiance to the New, and chose the King of the Franks and Lombards to be Emperor of the Romans. Though the powers of Charles were not increased nor his dominions extended, he held everything by a new title. ♦Final division of the Empire.♦ The Roman Empire was divided, never to be joined together again. But its Western half now took in, not only the greatest of its lost provinces, but vast regions which had never formed part of the Empire in the days of Trajan himself. Again, the distinctive character of the older Roman Empire had been the absence of nationality. The whole civilized world had become Rome, and all its free inhabitants had become Romans. ♦Growing nationality of the two Empires, German and Greek.♦ But from this time each of the two divisions of the Empire begins to assume something like a national character. East and West alike remained Roman in name and in political traditions. The Old Rome was the nominal centre of one; the New Rome was both the nominal and the real centre of the other. But there was a sense in which both alike ceased from this time to be Roman. The Western Empire has passed to a German king, and later changes tended to make his Empire more and more German. The Eastern Empire meanwhile, by the successive loss of the Eastern provinces, of Latin Africa, and of Latin Italy, became nearly conterminous with those parts of Europe and Asia where the Greek speech and Greek civilization prevailed. From one point of view, both Empires are still Roman; from another point of view, one is fast becoming German, the other is fast becoming Greek. ♦Rivalry of the two Empires.♦ And the two powers into which the old Roman Empire is thus split are in the strictest sense two Empires. They are no longer mere divisions of an Empire which has been found to be too great for the rule of one man. The Emperors of the East and West are no longer Imperial colleagues dividing the administration of a single Empire between them. They are now rival potentates, each claiming to be exclusively the one true Roman Emperor, the one true representative of the common predecessors of both in the days when the Empire was still undivided. ♦The two Caliphates.♦