liant portions of the army, and it became the fashion to
copy and admire the dress and manners of the barbarian cavalry."[26]

All the ancient historians concur in representing this impossibility of
finding native soldiers in its central provinces, as the main cause of
the overthrow of the empire. And that this, and not the power of the
barbarians, was the real cause of the destruction of the empire, is
proved by the fact, that whenever they were well directed, the
superiority of the legions was as clearly evinced as in the days of
Marius or Caesar. "Whenever the invaders," says Finlay, "met with a
steady and well-combined resistance, they were defeated without much
difficulty. The victorious reigns of Claudius II., Aurelian, and Probus,
prove the immense superiority of the Roman armies when properly
commanded; but the custom which was constantly gaining ground, _of
recruiting the legions from among the barbarians_, reveals the
deplorable state of _depopulation and weakness_ to which three centuries
of despotism and bad administration had reduced the empire."[27]

But amidst this general prostration of the political and military
strength of the Roman empire, in consequence of the decline and
desolation of the _country_, the _great towns_ still continued
flourishing, and wealth to an extraordinary and unparalleled extent
existed among the chief families, some of patrician, some of plebeian
origin. That was the grand characteristic of Rome in its later days. The
country, in the European part of the empire at least, was daily growing
poorer; the cultivation of the fields was neglected; and the provinces,
crushed under the weight of the direct taxes, which had become
unavoidable, had in most cases sunk to half their former number of
inhabitants. But the metropolis, whether in Italy or on the shores of
the Bosphorus, was still the seat of opulence, luxury, and prosperity.
The strength of Constantinople was sufficient to repel the barbarians,
and prolong the life of the empire of the east, for many centuries after
it had ceased to derive effective support from any of its provinces. It
is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus, that when Rome was taken by the
Goths under Alaric, it was still inhabited by 1,200,000 souls, who were
maintained chiefly by the expenditure of seventeen hundred and sixty
great families, many of whom had L160,000 of yearly income, equal to at
least L300,000 a-year of our money.[28] And of the flourishing co