99 



sive provinces, and massacred or made captives of the inha- 

 bitants. 



7thly, From the imbecility of Honorius, who,either put to 

 death his ablest generals, or drove them into rebellion; and 

 thus laid open the principal provinces of the empire to va- 

 rious barbarian nations, by whom they were successively ra- 

 vaged, and finally subdued. 



8thly, From the enormous weight of the taxes, which mul- 

 tiplied with the public distress. Severe inquisitions, which 

 confiscated their goods and tortured their persons, compelled 

 the subjects of Valentinian the 3d to tiy to woods and moun- 

 tains, and to prefer the more simple tyranny of the barba- 

 rians. 



ythly, On the division and decline of the empire, the tri- 

 butary harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn. Italy 

 was exhausted of inhabitants by war, famine and pestilence. 



Hence Dr. Robertson remarks, that, " if a man were called 

 to fix upon a period in the history of the world, during which 

 the condition of the human race was most calamitous and 

 afflicted, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed 

 from the death of Theodosius an. S95, to the establishment of 

 the Lombards in Italy, an. 571*. 



o3 Of 



* Life of Charles the 5th. vol. 1. p. Il.—there, and in Gibbon's history of the 

 Decline of the Roman Empire, the proof of all the above particulars may be found. 



