so often subdued? The ancient writers content
themselves with saying, that the people became corrupted; that they
lost their military courage; that the recruiting of the legions, in
the free inhabitants of the empire, became impossible; and that the
semi-barbarous tribes on the frontier could not be relied on to uphold
its fortunes. But a very little reflection must be sufficient to show
that there must have been much more in it than this, before a race of
conquerors was converted into one of slaves; before the legions fled
before the barbarians, and the strength of the civilized was
overthrown by the energy of the savage world. For what prevented a
revenue from being raised in the third or fourth, as well as the first
or second centuries? Corruption in its worst form had doubtless
pervaded the higher ranks in Rome from the Emperor downward; but these
vices are the faults of the exalted and the affluent only; they never
have, and never will, extend generally to the great body of the
community; for this plain reason, that they are not rich enough to
purchase them. But the remarkable thing is, that in the decline of the
empire, it was in the lower ranks that the greatest and most fatal
weakness first appeared. Long before the race of the Patricians had
become extinct, the free cultivators had disappeared from the fields.
Leaders and generals of the most consummate abilities, of the greatest
daring, frequently arose; but their efforts proved in the end
ineffectual, from the impossibility of finding a sturdy race of
followers to fill their ranks. The legionary Italian soldier was
awanting--his place was imperfectly supplied by the rude Dacian, the
hardy German, the faithless Goth. So completely were the inhabitants
of the provinces within the Rhine and the Danube paralysed, that they
ceased to make any resistance to the hordes of invaders; and the
fortunes of the empire were, for several generations, sustained solely
by the heroic efforts of individual leaders--Belisarius, Narces,
Julian, Aurelian, Constantine, and many others--whose renown, though
it could not rouse the pacific inhabitants to warlike efforts, yet
attracted military adventurers from all parts of the world to their
standard. Now, what weakened and destroyed the rural population? It
could not be luxury; on the contrary, they were suffering under excess
of poverty, and bent down beneath a load of taxes, which in Gaul, in
the time of Constantine, amounted, as G