Page:Biological Analogies in History.djvu/39

 civilizations which inhered in the older empire because it antedated the younger by a couple of thousand years, there is little to choose between them as regards the wide and abounding interest and importance of their careers.

In the world of antiquity each great empire rose when its predecessor had already crumbled. By the time that Rome loomed large over the horizon of history, there were left for her to contend with only decaying civilizations and raw barbarisms. When she conquered Pyrrhus she strove against the strength of but one of the many fragments into which Alexander's kingdom had fallen. When she conquered Carthage she overthrew a foe against whom for two centuries the single Greek city of Syracuse had contended on equal terms; it was not the Sepoy armies of the Carthaginian plutocracy, but the towering genius of the House of Barca, which rendered the struggle forever memorable. It was the distance and the desert, rather than the Parthian horse-bowmen, that set bounds to Rome in the east; and on the north her advance was curbed by the vast reaches of marshy woodland, rather than by the tall barbarians who dwelt therein. During the long generations of her greatness, and until the sword dropped from her withered hand, the Parthian was never a menace of aggression, and the German threatened her but to die.

On the contrary, the great expansion of England has occurred, the great empire of Britain has been achieved, during the centuries that have also seen mighty military nations rise and flourish on the continent of Europe. It is as if Rome, while creating and keeping the empire she won between the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan, had at the same time held her own with the Nineveh of Sargon and Tiglath, the Egypt of Thothmes and Rameses, and the kingdoms of Persia and Macedon