The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

[CHAPTER IV.]

THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE.

§ 1. The Later Geography of the Empire.

The Roman dominion, as we have seen, grew up by the successive annexation of endless kingdoms, districts, and cities, each of which, after its annexation, still retained, whether as an allied province or a subject state, much of the separate being which it had while it was independent. The allies and subjects of Rome remained in a variety of different relations to the ruling city, and the old names and the old geographical boundaries were largely preserved. ♦Wiping out of old divisions under the Empire.♦ But, as the old ideas of the commonwealth gradually died out, and as the power of the Emperors gradually grew into an avowed monarchy, the political change naturally led to a geographical change. The Roman dominion ceased to be a collection of allied and subject states under a single ruling city; it changed into a single Empire, all whose parts, all whose inhabitants, were equally subject to its Imperial head. The old distinctions of Latins, Italians, and provincials died out when all free inhabitants of the Empire became alike Romans. Italy had no longer any privilege; it was simply part of the Empire, like any other part. The geographical divisions which had been, first independent, then dependent states, sank into purely administrative divisions, which might be mapped out afresh at any time when it was found convenient to do so. Italy itself, in the extended sense which the word Italy had then come to bear, was mapped out afresh into regions as early as the time of Augustus. ♦New division of Italy under Augustus.♦ These divisions, eleven in number, mark an epoch in the process by which the detached elements out of which the Roman Empire had grown were fused together into one whole. As long as Italy was a collection of separate commonwealths, standing in various relations to the ruling city, there could not be any systematic division of the country for administrative purposes. Now that the whole of Italy stood on one level of citizenship or of subjection, the land might be mapped out in whatever way was most convenient. ♦The eleven Regions.♦ But the eleven regions of Augustus did not work any violent change. Old names and old boundaries largely remained. The famous names of Etruria, Latium, Samnium, Umbria, Picenum, and Lucania still lived on, though not always with their ancient boundaries. And, though all the land as far as the Alps was now Italy, two of the divisions of Italy kept their ancient names of Gaul on this side the Po and Gaul beyond the Po. Liguria and Venetia, now Italian lands, make up the remainder of Northern Italy.

♦Divisions under Constantine.♦

Italy had thus been mapped out afresh; what was done with Italy in the time of Augustus was done with the whole Empire in the time of Constantine. What Italy was in the earlier time the whole Empire was in the later; the old distinctions had been wiped out, and the whole of the Roman world stood ready to be parted out into fresh divisions. Under Diocletian, the Empire was divided into four parts, forming the realms of the four Imperial colleagues of his system, the two Augusti and their subordinate Cæsars. ♦Division of the Empire under Diocletian. A.D. 292.♦ Diocletian’s system of government involved a practical degradation of Rome from the headship of the Empire. Augusti and Cæsars now dwelled at points where their presence was more needed to ward off Persian and German attacks from the frontiers; Rome was forsaken for Nikomêdeia and Milan, for Antioch, York, and Trier. ♦Reunion under Constantine. A.D. 323.
Division between the sons of Theodosius. A.D. 395.♦ The division between the four Imperial colleagues lasted under another form after the Empire was re-united under Constantine, and it formed the groundwork of the more lasting division of the Empire into East and West, between the sons of Theodosius. The whole Empire was now mapped out according to a scheme in which ancient geographical names were largely preserved, but in which they were for the most part used in new or, at least, extended meanings. ♦The Four Prætorian Prefectures.♦ The Empire was divided into four great divisions called Prætorian Prefectures. These were divided into Dioceses—a name used in this nomenclature without regard to the ecclesiastical sense which was borrowed from it—and the dioceses again into Provinces. The four great prefectures of the East, Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, answer nearly to the fourfold division under Diocletian; while we may say that, in the final division, Illyricum and the East formed the Eastern Empire, and Italy and Gaul formed the Western. But it is only roughly that either the prefectures or their smaller divisions answer to any of the great national or geographical landmarks of earlier times.

♦Prefecture of the East.♦

The Prefecture of the East is that one among the four which least answers to anything in earlier geography, natural or historical. Its boundaries do not answer to those of any earlier dominion, nor yet to any great division of race or language. It stretched into all the three continents of the old world, and took in all those parts of the Empire which were never fully brought under either Greek or Roman influences. But it also took in large tracts which we have learned to look on as part of the Hellenic world—not only lands which had been, to a great extent, Hellenized in later times, but even some of the earliest Greek colonies. The four dioceses into which the Prefecture was divided formed far more natural divisions than the Prefecture itself.

♦Dioceses of the East,♦