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impossible to reconcile their minds, they shouldseparate their interest, and divide the empirebetween them. The conditions of the treatywere already drawn with some accuracy. It wasagreed, that Caracalla , as the elder brother,should remain in possession of Europe and thewestern Africa , and that he should relinquishthe sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta , whomight fix his residence at Alexandria or Antioch,cities little inferior to Rome itself in wealth andgreatness; that numerous armies should be con-stantly encamped on either side of the ThracianBosphorus, to guard the frontiers of the rivalmonarchies ; and that the senators of European extraction should acknowledge the sovereign ofRome, whilst the natives of Asia followed theemperor of the East. The tears of the empressJulia interrupted the negociation, the first ideaof which had filled every Roman breast withsurprise and indignation. The mighty mass ofconquest was so intimately united by the handof time and policy, that it required the most for-cible violence to rend it asunder. The Romanshad reason to dread, that the disjointed mem-bers would soon be reduced by a civil war un-der the dominion of one master; but if the se-paration was permanent, the division of the pro-vinces must terminate in the dissolution of anempire whose unity had hitherto remained in-violate."
CHAP.
VI.
u Herodian, 1. iv, p. 144.