[550] CP. fell to Mahomet II in 1453, and the kingdom of Trebizond, a fragment which still existed under a Comnenian dynasty, in 1461. Bosnia, Herzegovina, Roumania, Armenia proper, Georgia, and the lower part of Mesopotamia did not, however, belong to the Eastern Empire, but there was suzerainty over most of the adjacent territory except Persia.
[551] The town itself was in the hands of the Bulgarians till 504, when it was won by Theodoric for Italy; Cassiodorus, Chron.
[552] This frontier was delimited by Diocletian, c. 295; Eutropius, ix; Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 19.
[553] At this time Western Armenia, about one-third of the whole, was called Roman, the rest Persian. It was divided at the end of the fourth century, but no taxes were collected there by the Byzantines; see below.
[554] Neither the north-eastern nor the north-western boundaries can now be precisely defined. According to Theodoret, the north-eastern verge of the Empire was Pityus, about seventy miles farther north; Hist. Eccles., v, 34. After the reign of Trajan the Euxine was virtually a Roman lake, and a garrisoned fort was kept at Sebastopol, considerably north of the Phasis, Bosphorus (Crimea) under its Greek kings being still allowed a nominal autonomy; Arrian, Periplus Pont. Euxin. After 250, however, under Gallienus, etc., these regions were overrun by the Goths. In 275 Trajan’s great province of Dacia was abandoned by Aurelian, but he preserved the remembrance of it by forming a small province with the same name south of the Danube; Hist. Aug., Aurelian, 39, etc.
[555] This geographical sketch is based chiefly on the Notitia, the Synecdemus of Hierocles, and Spruner’s maps.
[556] Less than the present population of England, which has barely a tenth of the area of the Empire.
[557] To take a few instances: Thessalonica and Hadrianople, former population not less than 300,000 each, now about 70,000 each; Antioch, formerly 500,000 (Chrysostom mentions 200,000, doubtless only freemen), now 7,500; Alexandria, formerly 750,000, now again growing into prosperity, 230,000; on the other hand, Ephesus, Palmyra, Baalbec, etc., once great cities, have entirely disappeared. Nor have any modern towns sprung up to replace those mentioned; Cairo alone, with its 371,000, is an apparent exception, but it is almost on the site of Memphis, still a busy town in the sixth century. For these and many similar examples the modern gazetteers, etc., are a sufficient reference. Taking all things into consideration, to give a hundred millions to the countries forming the Eastern Empire, in their palmy days, might not be an overestimate; and even then the density of population would be only about one-third of what it is in England at the present day.
[558] Institut. Just., Prooem., etc.
[559] Here, however, seems to have been the tract first known to the Greeks as Asia, but the name was extended to the whole continent fully ten centuries before this time.