ABSTRACT
The year 410 had brought to all Europe a sound of a falling palace and a collapsing judgment seat: the Roman empire, it seemed, had fallen, and the underpinning of civilization with it. To describe for a moment the political side of the Roman heritage: its scheme of government. The old republican officers, the two yearly consuls, the pro-consuls, the duces of the legions, the tribunes of the cohorts and the lesser civil and military officers, remained. Local government in the provinces of the empire was carried on by the emperor’s deputy; taxes were raised by the province; imperial villas or corn lands in each province belonged to the fisc and contributed to the revenue. To the north, the frontiers of the empire were natural; in the east they included the Black Sea, the mountains of Armenia, and the sandy deserts east of Palestine and Arabia. The Roman army underwent great changes in the period of Diocletian and Constantine.
