Sometime in the dim past, this side of the Christian
era, a tribe made itself master. It came from. the south-
western part of that which is now Japan, and after
years, perhaps generations, of strenuous fighting, it was
supreme over the centre of the country. Now for the
first time west, south-west, and centre were welded into
a kind of unity. Still there was much land. to be con-
quered, still even within the central territory were in-
dependent chieftains, and still many disputed the sway
of the sovereign. Rude was the fighting, and rude
was the sovereignty, without thorough-going organisa-
tion or laws, and the conquered land was small and
its population sparse; but the beginning was made,
and that was the important thing, from which was to
come the Empire. ¹.

By the beginning of the sixth century A.D., the
control of the Emperor -- let us save time and call him
by the title which was his only much later -- was con-
siderable, for he claimed all, property and persons, as
his own.

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