2(^0 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



before the eftablifhment of the firft of the four great empires, the 

 Aflyrian, the earth was more populous than it has been at any time 

 fmce; though, I believe, it was more depopulated by the Roman 

 empire, (the greateii, as I have obferved, of the four), at the time of 

 the coming of Chrift, than by any of the other three, or perhaps by 

 all the other three put together. 



This was the (late of the population of the earth at the time of 

 the coming of our Saviour ; from which it appears, that the num- 

 ber of inhabitants, in all the then known countries, was wonderful- 

 ly decreafed. Nor was there the leaft appearance of their increafmg, 

 or not continuing to decreafe, but of the contrary: And, according- 

 ly, it fhall be fliown, under the next head, that, fmce the days of 

 Au"-uftus Csefar, when our Saviour came to this earth, the decreafe 

 has been prodigious; which may be inferred from v.^hat I have al- 

 ready ihown, that Italy, the feat of the Empire, was fo much de- 

 populated, that it needed to be repeopled by barbarians in the time 

 of Conftantine the Emperor. For the caufes of depopulation, dif- 

 eafes and vices, were much increafed in the days of Auguftus, and 

 continued ftill to increafe. In the time of Pliny the elder the num- 

 ber of difeafes amounted, as I have already obferved *, to 300 ; and 

 now they cannot be enumerated, at leaft I have never heard of 

 any number afligned to them. And as to vices, it is well known 

 that the Romans were as much or more increafed in vices than in 

 empire; and indeed the one was the caufe of the other, by the ad*- 

 dition which the increafe of their empire made to their wealth: And 

 a few years after Auguftus, under the fucceeding Emperors, I do 

 not believe that there ever was fo profligate a people, abandoned 

 to all the moft flaameful vices, which, by contagion from the go- 

 verning people, muft have fpread more or lefs over all the then 

 known world. The virtues of Egypt and Greece, as well as 



thofe 



* Page 85 



