THE BLOOD OF THE NATION. 131 



an alien placed on the Grecian throne to suit the convenience of the 

 outside powers, which to the ancient Greeks were merely factions of 

 harharians. In the late war some poet, addressing the spirit of ancient 

 (Jreece, appealed to her 



"Of all thy thousands grant us three 

 To make a new Thermopylae." 



But there were not even three — not even one — Ho make another 

 Marathon,' and the Turkish troops swept over the historic country 

 with no other hindrance than the effortless deprecation of Christendom. 



XXX. Why did Eome fall? It was not because untrained hordes 

 were stronger than disciplined legions. It was not that she grew 

 proud, luxurious, corrupt, and thereby gained a legacy of physical 

 weakness. We read of her wealth, her extravagance, her indolence and 

 vice, but all this caused only the downfall of the enervated, the vicious 

 and the indolent. The Eoman legions did not riot in wealth. The 

 Roman generals were not all entangled in the wiles of Cleopatra. 



XXXI. 'The Eoman Empire,' says Seeley, 'perished for want of 

 men.' You will find this fact on the pages of every history, though 

 few have pointed out war as the final and necessar}' cause of the Eoman 

 downfall. In his recent noble history of the 'Downfall of the An- 

 cient World' ('Der Untergang der Antiken Welt,' 1897), Prof. Otto 

 Seeck,* of Greifeswald, makes this fact very apparent. The cause of 

 the fall of Rome is found in the 'Extinction of the Best' ('Die Aus- 

 rottung der Besten'), and all that remains to the historian is to give the 

 details of this extermination. He says 'In Greece a wealth of spiritual 

 power went down in the suicidal wars.' In Eome "Marius and Cinna 

 slew the aristocrats by hundreds and thousands. Sulla destroyed 

 no less thoroughly the democrats, and whatever of noble blood sur- 

 vived fell as an offering to the proscription of the triumvirate." 

 "The Eomans had less of spontaneous power to lose than the 

 Greeks, and so desolation came to them all the sooner. He who was 

 bold enough to rise politically was almost without exception thrown to 

 the ground. Only coivards remained, and from their brood came forward 

 the new generations. Cowardice showed itself in lack of originality and 

 slavish following of masters and traditions." Had the Eomans been 

 still alive, the Eomans of the old republic, neither inside nor outside 

 forces could have worked the fall of Eome. But the true Eomans 

 passed away early. Even Csesar notes the 'dire scarcity of men.' "Sei- 

 VTjV oXiyavOpoTTiav.") Still there were always men in plenty, such 

 as they were. Of this there is abundant testimony. Slaves and camp 

 followers were always in evidence. It was the men of strength and 



* I am indebted to Prof. E. A. Ross for the reference to this excellent work. 



