The Kingdoms of Modern Europe
"Whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
"And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
"And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."
"The kingdom shall be divided." So declared the prophet of God. In the height of its power, Rome scouted the thought that so mighty a fabric could ever be broken up. Horace sang in his "Odes,"
"How, added to a conquered world,
Euphrates 'bates his tide,
And Huns, beyond our frontiers hurled,
O'er straitened deserts ride.
* * * * *
"The Goths beyond the sea may plot,
The warlike Basques may plan;
Friend, never heed them! vex thee not;
For this our mortal span
Of little wants."
—Book 2, Marris's Translation.
But the words were written on the ancient parchment in the days of Babylon, "The kingdom shall be divided;" and true to the word of the prophet, the Roman Empire fell apart with the mixture of nations and peoples that swept into it. The elements did not hold together, even as the mixture of iron and clay in the image did not cleave together. Broken up by the invasions of fresh nations from the north, the Western Empire was divided into lesser kingdoms, out of which have grown the modern nations of western Europe.