62 JORDAN— THE HUMAN HARVEST. 



[April i& 



the suicidal wars." '* In Rome, Alarius and Cinna slew the aristo- 

 crats by hundreds and thousands. Sulla destroyed the democrats, 

 and not less thoroughly. Whatever of strong blood survived, fell as 

 an offering to the proscription of the Triumvirate." " The Romans 

 had less of spontaneous force to lose than the Greeks. Thus deso- 

 lation came to them sooner. Whoever was bold enough to rise polit- 

 ically in Rome was almost without exception thrown to the ground. 

 Only cowards remained and from their brood came forzuard the new 

 generations. Cowardice showed itself in lack of originality and in 

 slavish following of masters and traditions." 



The Romans of the Republic could not have made the history of 

 the Roman Empire. In their hands it would have been still a repub- 

 lic. Could they have held aloof from world-conquering schemes, 

 Rome might have remained a republic, enduring even to our own 

 day. The seeds of destruction lie not in the race nor in the form of 

 government, but in the influences by which the best men are cut off 

 from the work of parenthood. 



" The Roman Empire," says Seeley, " perished for want of men." 

 The dire scarcity of men is noted even by Julius Caesar. And at the 

 same time it is noted that there are men enough. Rome was filling 

 up like an overflowing marsh. Men of a certain type were plenty, 

 " people with guano in their composition," to use Emerson's striking 

 phrase, but the self-reliant farmers, the hardy dwellers on the flanks 

 of the Apennines, the Roman men of the early Roman days, these 

 were fast going, and with the change in the breed came the change 

 in Roman history. 



" The mainspring of the Roman army for centuries had been the 

 patient strength and courage, capacity for enduring hardships, in- 

 stinctive submission to military discipline of the population that lined 

 the Apennines." 



With the Antonines came " a period of sterility and barrenness 

 in human beings." '' The human harvest zvas bad:' Bounties were 

 offered for marriage. Penalties were devised against race-suicide. 

 " Marriage," says Metellus, " is a duty which, however painful, every 

 citizen ought manfully to discharge." Wars were conducted in the 

 face of a declining birth rate, and this decline in quality and quan- 



