WEIGHT OF CHAP . IX . 



"Whatever may have been the amount of 

 taxes imposed on the several divisions of the 

 Roman Empire, whether they were more or less 

 grievous than those extracted from Gaul, they 

 at length evidently produced a general and in- 

 creasing distress in every province of the do- 

 minion. The agriculture of the Roman pro- 

 vinces was insensibly ruined, and, in the pro- 

 gress of despotism, which tends to disappoint 

 its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to 

 derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, 

 or the remission of tributes, which their subjects 

 were utterly incapable of paying. The fertile 

 and happy province of Campania, the scene of 

 the early victories and of the delicious retire- 

 ments of the citizens of Rome, extended be- 

 tween the sea and the Apennine, from the Tyber 

 to the Silarus. Within sixty years after the 

 death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an 

 actual survey, an exemption was granted in 

 favour of three hundred and thirty thousand 

 English acres of desert and uncultivated land, 

 which amounted to one-eighth of the whole sur- 

 face of the province. As the footsteps of the 

 Barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the 

 cause of this amazing desolation, which is re- 

 corded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the 

 administration of the Roman emperors." P. 87. 



The conclusion to which Gibbon and other 

 writers have arrived ought not to be received 



