Identifier: earlydaysofchrist00gran (find matches)
Title: The early days of Christianity
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Grant, Frederick C. (Frederick Clifton), 1891-1974
Subjects: Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
Publisher: New York, Cincinnati, The Abingdon press
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ians and the Balkan ranges; the heartof Asia Minor was a high, thinly populated table-land;Arabia and all of north Africa (except the valley of theNile and a thin fringe of coastland) were desert. Hencethis maritime empire was made up chiefly of peopleswho dwelt along the shores of the great inland sea. Allthe important cities were either upon or near its coast. But if the sea divided, it also united the empire, forit was the greatest highway of the ancient world. Voyageswere easily and quickly made in every direction. Theislands Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, Cyprus, and scatteredgroups in the .^gean, almost formed stepping-stones—at least they afforded convenient stopping-places—onthe routes across the Great Sea. The subject peoples.—The most diverse races andpeoples met and mingled in the population of this vastImperium Rornanum: Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Mace-donians, Illyrians, Gauls, Celts, Phoenicians, Syrians,Arabs, Egyptians, Jews, and many from the uncivilized nn NEW YORK
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THE ROMAN WORLD 15 peoples of the north (brought in as slaves), togetherwith numberless traders from Armenia, Persia (Parthia),and the Orient. It is true, Alexander the Great (whodied 323 B. C.) had begun three centuries before theprocess of welding the eastern peoples into one. ButAlexanders empire was short-lived, and the process hadgone on but slowly until Rome took over the administra-tion of world-government. Population.—It is estimated that between sixty-fiveand one hundred million people lived under the empirein the first century—considerably less than the popula-tion of the United States to-day. The great centers ofpopulation were, as they had been for many centuries,Egypt (the valley of the Nile), Palestine and Syria,Cilicia and the south and west coasts of Asia Minor,Greece (though much more sparsely populated than inthe days of Pericles and Plato), Italy, and the islands—especially Sicily and Cj-prus. Next in rank, perhaps,stood the regions immediately back of Carthag

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