CHAPTER X.
GEOGRAPHY OF THE EMPIRE AT THE TIME OF ITS GREATEST EXTENT.
The Roman eagle seized The double prey, and proudly perch'd on high And here a thousand years he plumed his wing Till from his lofty eyry, tempest-tost, And impotent through age, headlong he plunged, While nations shuddered as they saw him fall .-- _Anon._ 1.

The ordinary boundaries of the Roman empire, over which, however, it sometimes passed, were, in Europe, the two great rivers of the Rhine and Danube; in Asia, the Euphrates and the Syrian deserts; in Africa, the tracts of arid sand which fence the interior of that continent.

It thus contained those fertile and rich countries which surround the Mediterranean sea, and constitute the fairest portion of the earth.
2.

Beginning at the west of Europe,[1] we find, first, Hispa'nia, _Spain_.

Its boundaries are, on the east, the chain of the Pyrenees; on every other side, the sea.