THE RACE PROBLEM OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 319 

served the purest Roman blood. This principle, however, could not 
be maintained. In the first century more and more citizens from 
the provinces penetrated into the legions, and recruits from all- parts 
of Italy were found among the praetorians. The old recruiting 
districts became more and more deficient. HaAprian inverted the 
principle as to the recruiting of the legions: from his time they were 
recruited from the districts where they camped, i. e. the borders of 
the Empire, where civilization, except for what was brought by the 
army, was at its lowest. Seprimius Severus dissolved the old Italian 
body of praetorians and created a new one recruited from the legions. 
In this manner the army was barbarized and in the third century 
the way to any leading post was through the army‘. From the time 
of Maximinus Turax the emperors were barbarians, many of them 
Illyrians; in all probability they belonged to the refractory people 
that we know in our time as Albanians. They turned the 
Empire upside-down in the third century, but the vigour of these 
emperors did at last create order. The lack of recruits, however, was 
not due entirely to the diminishing number of the civilized popula- 
tion: here the deep-rooted pacificism of the age also made itself felt; 
but it vigorously contributed to the immixture of barbarians and 
provincials in the governing classes. From the time of DIoCLETIAN 
the best bodies of troops were recruited from the Germans within 
and without the borders of the Empire. r 
The mixed character of the population of the capital is attested 
by many aneient authors. We can hardly imagine the extent of the 
admixture; only Constantinople, the most cosmopolitan city of the 
world, can give us an idea of it. Cicero calls Rome a city created 
by the confluence of the nations, four centuries later the emperor 
CoNsSTANTIUS wondered at the haste with which all the peoples flowed 
together to Rome. Lucan, the poet and friend of Nero, says that 
Rome was populated not by its own citizens but by the scum of the 
world. The Oriental element seems to have been very conspicuous. 
A famous passage in JuvENAL states that the poet cannot like this 
Graecised Rome, but that the least part of the scum is composed of 
Greeks: the Syrian Orontes has flowed into the Tiber, with foreign 
languages and foreign manners. 
The Jewish population was considerable. In the year 4 B. C. it is 
said that 8,000 Jews accompanied a deputation to the Emperor. 
Tigerius turned them out and deported 4,000, to Sardinia, but when 
CLaupius some years later wished to do the same, they had become 
