7 z6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



reasons as there have been writers. Among the many causes that were 

 more or less instrumental in producing this melancholy page of history, 

 have been noticed the decay of religious faith ; the loss of the love 

 of freedom, produced by a system which made half of the population 

 slaves ; accumulation of wealth, and destruction of the middle class, 

 the society consisting only of the very rich and the very poor ; disin- 

 clination to marriage of the Roman citizens, which became so general 

 that the government was led to offer a premium for marriages ; and 

 the decimation of the Roman youths by constant wars. In so compli- 

 cated a problem, in which so many causes have led to the same result, 

 it is necessary, in order to discover the primary and fundamental cause, 

 to rise above those more transitory and local elements which confuse 

 rather than aid the observer. So, if we look above all these, there 

 will appear a further cause the cause, indeed, of these causes in the 

 conflict of societies, of different races, or of different civilizations. 



In the middle of the second century b. c, the arms of the Roman 

 Republic encompassed the Mediterranean from Carthage to Cadiz ; the 

 world obeyed the mandates and bowed to the authority of the Senate 

 and the Roman people. The acquisition, however, of this great power 

 and wealth became the cause of her subsequent weakness and poverty. 

 The victorious arms of the legions were the plowshares which prepared 

 the soil to receive the seed of final dissolution. Of the century follow- 

 ing we read, that " the vast admixture of foreign elements produced 

 boundless self-indulgence, and general faithlessness and corruption. 

 New vices were imported, mainly from Greece and Asia, new creeds 

 from all parts of the world." * Prisoners of war were retained as slaves 

 by their conquerors, and to these so many had been added by purchase 

 that, when it was proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar 

 habit, it was justly apprehended that there would be too much danger 

 in acquainting them with their numbers. The slave population in the 

 first century has been estimated to have been sixty million, " and at 

 least equal in numbers to the free inhabitants of the Roman world." f 

 These, by their services, aided the degeneration and hastened the mor- 

 tality of their masters ; they became citizens, soldiers, senators, and 

 emperors. The Romans themselves had become a fast-decreasing 

 minority in their own empire. From the adoption of the luxurious 

 customs of their Oriental provinces, the Roman soldier became too 

 weak to bear the ancient armor. The deserted ranks of the legions 

 were replenished with the hardy barbarians from the frontier provinces. 

 The name of emperor had lost its significance, by his deserting the 

 field for a more easy and agreeable residence in the capital ; but his 

 warlike character was redeemed by the accession to the purple of the 

 Thracian peasant Maximin, who during his reign disdained to visit 

 either Rome or Italy. 



* Johnson's " Cyclopaedia," vol. iii, p. 1707. 



f Gibbon, " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," vol. i, p. 27. 



