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Rh having behind them all the water-ways of Europe.

In Asia the Romans did but take over the western portion of the Macedonian conquests. As the Rhine and Danube, defended by the Legions, marked the extent of Roman penetration northward from the Mediterranean, so the Upper Euphrates, where it flows from north to south before bending south-eastward, marked the limit, defended by other Legions, of their eastward penetration from the Mediterranean. The Roman Empire was, in fact, in the large sense, a local Empire; it belonged wholly to the Atlantic Coastland. The further provinces which had been under the Macedonian sway fell in Roman times to the Parthians, successors of the Persians, who in their turn descended from Iran upon Mesopotamia. Once more came the opportunity of the camel-men. Inspired by the preaching of Mohammed, the Arabs of the central oasis of Nejd, and of its western extension in the Hedjaz of Mecca and Medina, sent forth the Saracen armies, who drove the Parthians from Mesopotamia, and the Romans from Syria and Egypt, and established a chain of inland Capitals—Cairo, Damascus, and