the girl
threatened with a union repugnant to her feelings, could say: "I will be
a nun," and thereby gain the highest esteem of the world.

VII

WOMEN WHO WITNESSED THE FALL OF ROME

The Empire had forfeited its right to take its title from the ancient
city on the Tiber long before its final dismemberment. Constantine had
removed his court and capital to the Bosphorus, and there the metropolis
of the East remained. The Western emperors established their courts in
various parts of Europe, their locations being usually determined by the
exigences of rivalry and the territorial success of their usurpation.
Roman citizenship had become universal and at the same time meaningless:
it represented no privileges other than the bare fact that its owner was
not a slave. The freedom it conferred was only relative and, to a very
great extent, merely theoretical; practically, all were the slaves of
the emperor. The race of Romulus had degenerated into a pretentious but
pusillanimous aristocracy, who desired no title to glory save that found
in pedigree. There was not left in them sufficient virility to set up,
much less to maintain, an emperor of their own race; their rulers were
of barbarian extraction. The Roman army was a cosmopolitan aggregation,
in which Italy was the least represented of the provinces. Ammianus
Marcellinus, the historian, writing late in the fourth century, says:
"The modern nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the
loftiness of their chariots and the weighty magnificence of their dress.
Their long robes of silk and purple float in the wind; and as they are
agitated by art or accident, they occasionally discover the
under-garments, the rich tunics, embroidered with the figures of various
animals." Gibbon notes that the more pious coxcombs substituted the
figure of some favorite saint. Ammianus goes on to describe how,
"followed by a train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement,
they move along the streets with the same impetuous speed as if they
travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is boldly
imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
Whenever these persons of high distinction condescend to visit the
public baths, they assume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and
insolent command, and appropriate to their exclusive use the
conveniences which were designed for the