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 to take care of the new province. Then the historic law that I have already enunciated to you, the law by which the efforts of men result far differently from that which they had intended, was verified anew by Augustus also, and in a new form. He had created his Gallic policy to augment the revenues of the Empire; the consequences of this fiscal policy, necessity-inspired, were greater than he and his friends ever dreamed. The winter of 15-14 B.C. is a notable date in the story of Latin civilisation, for then the destiny of the Empire was irrevocably settled; the Roman Empire will be made up of two parts, the Oriental and the Occidental, each part sufficiently strong to withstand being overcome by the other; it will be neither an Asiatic, nor a Celtic-Latin, but a mixed Empire: between both parts, Italy will rule for two centuries more, and Rome, an immense city, at once Oriental and Latin, will keep the metropolitan crown won from the enfeebled East, and dominate the immature barbarian West.

Speaking of Cleopatra, I have shown you how great was the Oriental peril that threatened in the last century of the Republic to wipe out Rome. What miraculous force saved it? Gaul. Suppose that the army of Cæsar had been exterminated at Alesia; suppose that Rome, discouraged,