ys of the
seven hills. A pestilential disease arose from the stagnation of the
deluge, and so rapid was the contagion, that fourscore persons expired
in an hour in the midst of a solemn procession, which implored the mercy
of Heaven. [59] A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry
prevails soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war:
but, as the far greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless
indigence and celibacy, the depopulation was constant and visible, and
the gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the human
race. [60] Yet the number of citizens still exceeded the measure of
subsistence: their precarious food was supplied from the harvests of
Sicily or Egypt; and the frequent repetition of famine betrays the
inattention of the emperor to a distant province. The edifices of Rome
were exposed to the same ruin and decay: the mouldering fabrics were
easily overthrown by inundations, tempests, and earthquakes: and the
monks, who had occupied the most advantageous stations, exulted in their
base triumph over the ruins of antiquity. [61] It is commonly believed,
that Pope Gregory the First attacked the temples and mutilated the
statues of the city; that, by the command of the Barbarian, the Palatine
library was reduced to ashes, and that the history of Livy was the
peculiar mark of his absurd and mischievous fanaticism. The writings
of Gregory himself reveal his implacable aversion to the monuments of
classic genius; and he points his severest censure against the profane
learning of a bishop, who taught the art of grammar, studied the Latin
poets, and pronounced with the same voice the praises of Jupiter and
those of Christ. But the evidence of his destructive rage is doubtful
and recent: the Temple of Peace, or the theatre of Marcellus, have been
demolished by the slow operation of ages, and a formal proscription
would have multiplied the copies of Virgil and Livy in the countries
which were not subject to the ecclesiastical dictator. [62]

[Footnote 58: The passages of the homilies of Gregory, which represent
the miserable state of the city and country, are transcribed in the
Annals of Baronius, A.D. 590, No. 16, A.D. 595, No. 2, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 59: The inundation and plague were reported by a deacon, whom
his bishop, Gregory of Tours, had despatched to Rome for some relics
The ingenious messenger embellished his tale and the river with a great
dragon and a tr