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whole extent of the   empire. The memory of his virtues still continued, however, to   protect the feeble and inexperienced youth of his two sons. After the death of their father, Arcadius and Honorius were   saluted, by the unanimous consent of mankind, as the lawful   emperors of the East, and of the West; and the oath of fidelity   was eagerly taken by every order of the state; the senates of   old and new Rome, the clergy, the magistrates, the soldiers,   and the people. Arcadius, who was then about eighteen years   of age, was born in Spain, in the humble habitation of a   private family. But he received a princely education in the   palace of Constantinople; and his inglorious life was spent in   that peaceful and splendid seat of royalty, from whence he   appeared to reign over the provinces of Thrace, Asia Minor,   Syria, and Egypt, from the Lower Danube to the confines of Persia and Æthiopia. His younger brother Honorius, assumed,   in the eleventh year of his age, the nominal government of   Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain; and the troops, which   guarded the frontiers of his kingdom, were opposed, on one   side, to the Caledonians, and on the other, to the Moors. The   great and martial præfecture of Illyricum was divided between   the two princes: the defence and possession of the provinces of Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia still belonged to the   Western empire; but the two large dioceses of Dacia and   Macedonia, which Gratian had intrusted to the valor of   Theodosius, were forever united to the empire of the East. The   boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which   now separates the Germans and the Turks; and the respective advantages of territory, riches, populousness, and military   strength,

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