THE EXAMPLE OF ROME 205 



famine and pestilence brought Rome to a low ebb. The reign of 

 Severus (193-211) saw an improvement in the government and 

 in general prosperity corresponding not only to the relatively 

 strong character of that ruler, but to the comparatively favor- 

 able conditions of climate. 



Soon after 200 A. D. there began in full force the long period 

 which Gibbon describes in the "Decline and Fall of the Roman 

 Empire." War, plague, famine, misgovemment, and barbarian 

 invasions vied with vice, crime, and incompetency to drag the 

 world lower and lower. In Italy, as well as in other lands, 

 depopulation progressed apace, infanticide became widespread, 

 great areas of formerly fertile land were left desolate by proprie- 

 tors who fled to avoid the exactions of the taxgatherer. How 

 could they pay the old taxes when decade after decade saw their 

 crops declining? The prosperity of the towns decreased with 

 that of the country districts. All over the Roman Empire there 

 were repeated riots and insurrections among the poverty-stricken 

 inhabitants. Political disorder due to starvation and misery 

 extended from Gaul on the one side to populous cities like Antioch 

 on the other, and Italy had its share. Civil war and the rule 

 of tyrants like Maxentius and Maximus added to the confusion. 

 Men's energy and power of self-control, as well as their crops, 

 were suffering at the behest of the inexorably changing climate. 

 Worst of all, the barbarians were constantly swooping down first 

 on one part of the empire and then on another. They, as well 

 as the Romans, were in distress because of lack of rain and hence 

 poor crops and scanty pasture for their flocks and herds. Or 

 if they themselves did not thus suffer, they were driven out of 

 their homes by other tribes who years before had migrated because 

 of drought. For generation after generation such unfortunate 

 tribes moved restlessly this way and that, seeking homes and 

 peaceful prosperity, but finding only war and slaughter, drought 

 and poverty. When the barbarians came down upon them from 

 the more vigorous north, what could the enervated Romans do 



