r the support of the
citizens of Rome, were obtained by importation from Lybia and Egypt,
where they could be raised at a less expense. "At, Hercule," says
Tacitus, "olim ex Italia legionibus longinquas in provincias commeatus
portabantur; _nec nunc infecunditate laboratur: sed Africam potius et
Egyptum exercemus, navibusque et casibus vita populi Romani permissa
est_."[18] The expense of cultivating grain in a district where
provisions and wages were high because money was plentiful, speedily led
to the abandonment of tillage in the central parts of Italy, when the
unrestrained importation of grain from Egypt and Lybia, where it could
be raised at less expense in consequence of the extension of the Roman
dominions over those regions, took place. "More lately," says Sismondi,
"the gratuitous distributions of grain made to the Roman people,
rendered the cultivation of grain in Italy still more unprofitable: it
then became absolutely impossible for the little proprietors to maintain
themselves in the neighbourhood of Rome; they became insolvent, and
their patrimonies were sold to the rich. Gradually the abandonment of
agriculture extended from one district to another. The true country of
the Romans--central Italy--_had scarcely achieved the conquest of the
globe, when it found itself without an agricultural population_. In the
provinces peasants were no longer to be found to recruit the legions; as
few corn-fields to nourish them. Vast tracts of pasturage, where a few
slave shepherds conducted herds of thousands of horned cattle, had
supplanted the nations who had brought their greatest triumphs to the
Roman people."[19] These great herds of cattle were then, as now, in the
hands of a few great proprietors. This was loudly complained of, and
signalized as the cancer which would ruin the Roman empire, even so
early as the time of Pliny. "Verumque confitentibus," says he,
"_latifunda perdidere Italiam; imo ac provincias_."[20]

All the historians of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, have
concurred in ascribing to these two causes--viz. the decay of
agriculture and ruin of the agricultural population in Italy, and
consequent engrossing of estates in the hands of the rich--the ruin of
its mighty dominion. But it is not generally known how wide-spread had
been the desolation thus produced; how deep and incurable the wounds
inflicted on the vitals of the state--by the simple consequences of its
extension, which enabled