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54 into Asia, but the distinction between Latin West and Greek East remained, as was evident when civil war came to be waged between the Roman Governors of the West and the East, Cæsar and Antony. At the sea fight of Actium, one of the decisive battles of the world's history, the Western fleet of Cæsar destroyed the Eastern fleet of Antony. Thenceforth for five centuries the entire Mediterranean was a 'closed sea'; and we think in consequence of the Roman Empire as chiefly a land-power. No fleet was needed, save a few police vessels, to maintain as complete a command of the arterial sea-way of the Mediterranean as ever the Kings of Egypt exercised over their Nile-way. Once more land-power terminated a cycle of competition upon the water by depriving sea-power of its bases. True that there had been the culminating sea battle of Actium, and that Cæsar's fleet had won the reward of all finally successful fleets, the command over all the sea. But that command was not afterwards maintained upon the sea, but upon the land by holding the coasts.

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