By his vast labours our horizon has broadened beyond the backstairs of the Palace and the benches of the Senate House in Rome to the wide lands north and east and south of the Mediterranean, and we have begun to realize the true achievements of the Empire.

The old theory of an age of despotism and decay has been overthrown, and the believer in human nature can now feel confident that, whatever their limitations, the men of the Empire wrought for the betterment and the happiness of the world.
[Footnote 1: Wickhoff, _Wiener Genesis_, p.

10; Riegl, _Stilfragen_, p.
272.] Their efforts took two forms, the organization of the frontier defences which repulsed the barbarian, and the development of the provinces within those defences.

The first of these achievements was but for a time.

In the end the Roman legionary went down before the Gothic horseman.