lly poured into the field the rising generations of
freemen and soldiers; and their numbers were reenforced by the warlike
and populous states of Italy, who, after a brave resistance, had
yielded to the valor and embraced the alliance, of the Romans. The sage
historian, who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio, and beheld the
ruin of Carthage, has accurately described their military system; their
levies, arms, exercises, subordination, marches, encampments; and the
invincible legion, superior in active strength to the Macedonian phalanx
of Philip and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war
Polybius has deduced the spirit and success of a people, incapable of
fear, and impatient of repose. The ambitious design of conquest, which
might have been defeated by the seasonable conspiracy of mankind, was
attempted and achieved; and the perpetual violation of justice was
maintained by the political virtues of prudence and courage. The arms of
the republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war,
advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and
the Ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve
to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by
the _iron_ monarchy of Rome.

The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as a
singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind. But the decline
of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness.
Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction
multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident
had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to
the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and
obvious; and instead of inquiring _why_ the Roman empire was destroyed,
we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The
victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of
strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic,
and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious
for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the
base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike
formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigor of the
military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial
institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a
del