names of Europe and Scythia, which in general suggest such vast expansions of country, were given to two small portions of Thrace, the first to that which extended up to the walls of Constantinople, and the second to the north-east corner which lay between the Danube and the Euxine.[1] With parallel magniloquence, a limited area adjoining the south-*east border of Palestine was denominated Arabia. The maritime province of Honorias on the north of Asia Minor, perpetuated the memory of the despicable Emperor of the West, Honorius. The name of Arcadia awakens us to reminiscences of Mount Cyllene with Hermes and "universal" Pan,[2] of Artemis with her train of nymphs heading the chase through the woods of Erymanthus, or of the historic career of Epaminondas and the foundation of Megalopolis. But the Arcadia officially recognized in the Eastern Empire had no higher associations than the feeble son of Theodosius, brother of the above-named, and we may be surprised to find it in central Egypt with Oxyrhyncus and Memphis for its chief towns.
By a second disposition of the Empire of an inclusive kind the provinces were grouped in seven Dioceses, namely: three European, Dacia,[3] Thrace, and Macedonia; three Asiatic, the Asian, the Pontic, and the Orient; and one African, Egypt. The first of these obeys the Praetorian Praefect of Illyricum, the sixth the Count of the Orient or
