You might fancy the campaign over now: but it was not. Along the country of the Danube, from the Euxine to the Alps, the Teutons had still the advantage of interior lines, and vast bodies of men--Herules, Gepids, Ostrogoths, Lombards--were coming down in an enormous echellon similar to that which forced the Rhine; to force Italy at the same fatal point--Venetia. The party who could command the last reserve would win, as is the rule. And the last reserves were with our race. They must win. But not yet. They had, in the mean time, taken up a concave line; a great arc running round the whole west of the Mediterranean from Italy, France, Spain, Algeria, as far as Carthage. They could not move forces round that length of coast, as fast as the Romans could move them by sea; and they had no fleets. Although they had conquered the Western Empire, they were in a very dangerous position, and were about to be very nearly ruined. For you see, the Romans in turn had changed front at more than a right angle. They lay at first north-west and south-east. They lay in Justinian's time, north and south. Their right was Constantinople; their left Pentapolis; between those two points they held Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt; a position of wealth incalculable. Meanwhile, as we must remember always, they were masters of the sea, and therefore of the interior lines of operation. They had been forced into this position; but, like Romans, they had accepted it. With the boundless common sense of the race (however fallen, debauched, pedantic), they worked it out, and with terrible effect. Their right in Constantinople was so strong that they cared nothing for it, though it was the only exposed point. They would defend it by hiring the Barbarians, and when they could not pay them, setting them on to kill down each other; while they quietly drew into Constantinople the boundless crops of Asia, Syria and Egypt. The strength of Constantinople was infinite--commanding two seas and two continents. It is, as the genius of Constantinople saw--as the genius of the Czar Nicholas saw--the strongest spot, perhaps, in the world. That fact was what enabled Justinian's Empire to arise again, and enabled Belisarius and Narses to reconquer Africa and Italy. Remember that, and see how strong the Romans were still. The Teutons meanwhile had changed their front, by conquering the Western Mediterranean, and were becoming weak, because scattered on exterior lines, to their extreme danger. I cannot exaggerate the danger of that position. It enabled the Romans by rapid movements of their fleets, to reconquer Africa and Italy. It might have enabled them to do much more.