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 greater than that covered by Great Britain and Ireland. At the present day it is calculated that these vast regions are peopled by only about twenty-eight millions of inhabitants, but their modern state of decay is practically the reverse of their condition in the sixth century, when they were the flourishing, though already failing, seat of the highest civilization at that time existing on the earth; and there is good reason to believe that they were then considerably more, perhaps even double as, populous.

For the purposes of civil government the Empire was divided into sixty-four provinces, each of which was placed under an administrator, who was usually drawn from the profession of the law. These officers were, as a rule, of nearly equal rank, but in three instances the exceptional extent and importance of the provinces necessitated the bestowal of a title more lofty than usual on the governors.