ntry,
or to intercept the passage of the barbarians. If we review this general
state of the Imperial forces; of the cavalry as well as infantry; of
the legions, the auxiliaries, the guards, and the navy; the most liberal
computation will not allow us to fix the entire establishment by sea
and by land at more than four hundred and fifty thousand men: a military
power, which, however formidable it may seem, was equalled by a monarch
of the last century, whose kingdom was confined within a single province
of the Roman empire.

We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the
strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines.
We shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe the
provinces once united under their sway, but, at present, divided into so
many independent and hostile states.

Spain, the western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the
ancient world, has, in every age, invariably preserved the same natural
limits; the Pyrenaean Mountains, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic
Ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally divided between two
sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into three provinces, Lusitania,
Baetica, and Tarraconensis. The kingdom of Portugal now fills the place
of the warlike country of the Lusitanians; and the loss sustained by
the former on the side of the East, is compensated by an accession
of territory towards the North. The confines of Grenada and Andalusia
correspond with those of ancient Baetica. The remainder of Spain,
Gallicia, and the Asturias, Biscay, and Navarre, Leon, and the two
Castiles, Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all contributed to
form the third and most considerable of the Roman governments, which,
from the name of its capital, was styled the province of Tarragona. Of
the native barbarians, the Celtiberians were the most powerful, as the
Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most obstinate. Confident in the
strength of their mountains, they were the last who submitted to the
arms of Rome, and the first who threw off the yoke of the Arabs.

Ancient Gaul, as it contained the whole country between the Pyrenees,
the Alps, the Rhine, and the Ocean, was of greater extent than modern
France. To the dominions of that powerful monarchy, with its recent
acquisitions of Alsace and Lorraine, we must add the duchy of Savoy,
the cantons of Switzerland, the four electorates of the Rhine, and the
territories of Lieg