'' ROME IN THE EAST '''' In this history, a mere handful of visionary men pulled Rome back from the brink of a catastrophic civil ''war'' and then fought off assaults by Mithridates the Great and Tigranes the Great. They rescued the Republic and extended Roman power from the English Channel and Mauritania to the Indus Valley, to create a single State covering more than twice the area of any Empire before it.'' '' This greatly expanded Roman Republic now had great opportunities while facing even greater problems. It still had the political structures of the old Roman Republic, but with racial, social, economic and cultural paradigms that would no longer fit into the old moulids. Over the next two centuries the Centre of financial, intellectual and cultural dynamism moved irrevocably towards Babylon, but political power remained entrenched in Italy. The pressures of these opposing forces threatened to destroy the Republic from within.''
