But it was drawn surely, if slowly, to the east.

Throughout the first three centuries of our era, we can trace an eastward drift--of troops, of officials, of government machinery--till finally the capital itself is no longer Rome but Byzantium.

All the while, in the undisturbed security of the west, Romanization proceeded steadily.
The advance of this Romanization followed manifold lines.

The Roman government gave more or less direct encouragement, particularly in two ways.

It increased the Roman or Romanized population of the provinces during the earlier Empire by establishing time-expired soldiers--men who spoke Latin and who were citizens of Rome[1]--in provincial municipalities (_coloniae_).