revolt, civil war,
invasion--Pretenders, like Carausius and Allectus in Britain, setting
themselves up as emperors for awhile--Bands of brigands, like the Bagaudae
of Gaul, and the Circumcelliones of Africa, wandering about, desperate
with hunger and revenge, to slay and pillage--Teutonic tribes making
forays on the frontier, enlisted into the Roman armies, and bought off,
or hired to keep back the tribes behind them, and perish by their
brethren's swords.

What kept the empire standing, paradoxical as it may seem, was its own
innate weakness. From within, at least, it could not be overthrown. The
masses were too crushed to rise. Without unity, purpose, courage, they
submitted to inevitable misery as to rain and thunder. At most they
destroyed their own children from poverty, or, as in Egypt, fled by
thousands into the caves and quarries, and turned monks and hermits;
while the upper classes, equally without unity or purpose, said each to
himself, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'

The state of things at Rome, and after the rise of Byzantium under
Constantine at Byzantium likewise, was one altogether fantastic,
abnormal, utterly unlike anything that we have seen, or can imagine to
ourselves without great effort. I know no better method of illustrating
it, than quoting, from Mr. Sheppard's excellent book, _The Fall of Rome
and the Rise of New Nationalities_, a passage in which he transfers the
whole comi-tragedy from Italy of old to England in 1861.

'I have not thought it necessary to give a separate and distinct reply to
the theory of Mr. Congreve, that Roman Imperialism was the type of all
good government, and a desirable precedent for ourselves. Those who feel
any penchant for the notion, I should strongly recommend to read the
answer of Professor G. Smith, in the _Oxford Essays_ for 1856, which is
as complete and crushing as that gentleman's performances usually are.
But in order to convey to the uninitiated some idea of the state of
society under Caesarian rule, and which a Caesarian rule, so far as mere
government is concerned, if it does not produce, has never shewn any
tendency to prevent, let us give reins to imagination for a moment, and
picture to ourselves a few social and political analogies in our own
England of the nineteenth century.

'An entire revolution has taken place in our principles, manners, and
form of government. Parliaments, meetings, and all the ordinary
expressions of