The 

 Human 

 Harvest 



[30] 



"The Roman Empire," says Seeley, " per- 

 ished for want of men." Even Julius Caesar 

 notes the dire scarcity of men [heivrfv oKl- 

 ryavOpoTTLav), 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 was 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 dis- 



