Three of these were Asiatic. The first, specially called the _East_, took in all the possessions of Rome beyond Mount Tauros, together with Isauria, Kilikia, and the island of Cyprus. Its eastern boundaries naturally fluctuated according as Rome or Persia prevailed on the Euphrates and the Tigris, fluctuations of which we shall have again to speak more specially. ♦Egypt,♦ The diocese of _Egypt_, besides Egypt in the elder sense, took in, under the name of _Libya_, the old Greek land of the Kyrenaic Pentapolis. ♦Asia.♦ The diocese of _Asia_, a reminder of the elder province of that name and of the kingdom of Pergamos out of which it grew, took in the Asiatic coasts of the Ægæan, together with Pamphylia, Lykia, and the Ægæan Islands. The diocese of _Pontos_, preserving the name of the kingdom of Mithridates, took in the lands on the Euxine, with the fluctuating Armenian possessions of Rome. ♦Diocese of Thrace.♦ Besides these Asiatic lands, the Eastern Prefecture contained one European diocese, that of _Thrace_, which took in the lands stretching from the Propontis to the Lower Danube. The names of two of its provinces are remarkable. Rome now boasts of a province of _Scythia_. But, among the varied uses of that name, it has now shrunk up to mean the land immediately south of the mouths of the Danube. ♦Province of _Europa_.♦ The other name is _Europa_, a name which, as a Roman province, means the district immediately round the New Rome. Constantine had now fixed his capital on the site of the old Byzantion, the site from which the city on the Bosporos might seem to bear rule over two worlds. With whatever motive, the name of Europe was specially given to that corner of the Western continent where it comes nearest to the Eastern. Nor was the name ill-chosen for the district round the city which was so long to be the bulwark of Europe against invading Asia. ♦Great cities of the Eastern Prefecture.♦ And, besides the New Rome, this Prefecture, as containing those parts of the Empire which had belonged to the great Macedonian kingdoms, contained an unusual proportion of the great cities of the world. Besides a crowd of less famous places, it took in the two great Eastern seats of Grecian culture, the most renowned Alexandria and the most renowned Antioch, themselves only the chief among many others cities bearing the same names. All these, it should be remarked, were comparatively recent creations, bearing the names of individual men. That cities thus artificially called into being should have kept the position which still belonged to the great Macedonian capitals is one of the most speaking signs of the effect which the dominion of Alexander and his successors had on the history of the world. ♦Prefecture of Illyricum.♦