As I am reading Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Civili in Latin, I come across the names of many provinces in the Roman empire.[1] By and by, the list becomes mesmerizing: Boeotia, Macedonia, Ponto, Corcyra, Thessalia, Syria, Aegypto, Illyricum, Creta, Cilicia, Gallia, Apulia, Thracia, Lacedaemonia, Asia, Phoenicia, Italia, Achaia Epiroque, Cappadocia, Pannonia, Epirus, Hispania, Sicilia… Delighted by these names, I go to the World Wide Web in search of other Roman provinces, and especially the far-flung ones: Germania, Corsica, Sardinia, Judaea, Armenia, Africa, Galatia, Raetia, Dacia, Mesopotamia, Britannia, Mauretania, Arabia, Numidia… But then I get angry about the sorry state of the world I happen to be living in. Once upon a time, all this was ours. Ours! But nobody thinks of many of these provinces as ours any longer. Yours? Here is yet another proof of the fall of Rome, and out of Caesar’s own mouth. Alas, a quick glance through his commentaries is enough to laugh at the European Union as it has come to pass. Nothing but a shadow of our world of yesteryear.

Footnote

1. Vienna and Prague: F. Tempsky, 1893.