204 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



did not change greatly at first. As the "Encyclopedia Brittanica" 

 puts it, even Nero's wild excesses (54-68 A. D.) "scarcely affected 

 the prosperity of the empire at large; the provinces were well 

 governed, and the war with Parthia led to a compromise which 

 secured peace for half a century." At the end of this time, that 

 is, after 80 A. D., there occurred a decline in rainfall, but the 

 conditions were by no means so bad as during the second century 

 B. C. As might be expected under such circumstances, the 

 Emperor Nerva (96-98 A. D.) and his successors began a series 

 of attempts to take care of the food supply both of Italy and the 

 Empire. These attempts included vast irrigation works in North 

 Africa and Syria. In Italy capital was advanced at moderate 

 interest to landowners, and the profits were devoted to the main- 

 tenance and education of poor children. Time-expired soldiers 

 received grants of land, a proceeding which helped to give Italy 

 a well-to-do class of cultivators. "Although the system was not 

 successful in lower Italy, where economic decline could not be 

 arrested, there can be no doubt that central and northern Italy, 

 where the vine and olive were largely cultivated, and manufac- 

 turing industries sprang up, enjoyed a considerable measure of 

 prosperity." "Yet even under Trajan, Hadrian, and the Anto- 

 nines (98-180) we notice a failure of strength in the empire as 

 a whole. . . . The ceaseless labors of Hadrian were directed 

 mainly to the careful husbanding of such strength as still 

 remained, or to attempts at reviving it by sheer force of imperial 

 authority. Among the symptoms of incipient decline were the 

 growing depopulation, especially of the central parts of the 

 empire, the constant financial difficulties, the deterioration in 

 character of the local governments in the provincial communities, 

 and the increasing reluctance exhibited by all classes to undertake 

 the now onerous burden of municipal office." Here we see repeated 

 the conditions of the second century B. C, although not on so 

 serious a scale, as befits the somewhat more favorable climate. 

 During the reign of the odious Emperor Commodus (180-193) 



