Contrast this persistence of the old type in its old home, and in
certain lands which it had conquered, with its utter disappearance in
certain other lands where it was intrusive, but where it at one time
seemed as firmly established as in Italy--certainly as in Spain or
Gaul. No more curious example of the growth and disappearance of a
national type can be found than in the case of the Graeco-Roman
dominion in Western Asia and North Africa. All told it extended over
nearly a thousand years, from the days of Alexander till after the
time of Heraclius. Throughout these lands there yet remain the ruins
of innumerable cities which tell how firmly rooted that dominion must
once have been. The over-shadowing and far-reaching importance of what
occurred is sufficiently shown by the familiar fact that the New
Testament was written in Greek; while to the early Christians, North
Africa seemed as much a Latin land as Sicily or the Valley of the Po.
The intrusive peoples and their culture flourished in the lands for a
period twice as long as that which has elapsed since, with the voyage
of Columbus, modern history may fairly be said to have begun; and then
they withered like dry grass before the flame of the Arab invasion,
and their place knew them no more.
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