98 Checks to Population among the ancient Bk. i. 



secret of the wealth and weakness of the Roman 

 empire thus revealed to the world, than new swarms 

 of barbarians spread devastation through the fron- 

 tier provinces, and terror as far as the gates of 

 Rome.* The Franks, the Allemanni, the Goths, 

 and adventurers of less considerable tribes, com- 

 prehended under these general appellations, poured 

 like a torrent on different parts of the empire. 

 Rapine and oppression destroyed the produee of 

 the present and the hope of future harvests. A 

 long and general famine was followed by a wasting 

 plague, which for fifteen years ravaged every city 

 and province of the Roman empire; and, judging 

 from the mortality in some spots, it was conjec- 

 tured that in a few years war, pestilence, and fa- 

 mine, had consumed the moiety of the human spe- 

 cies, f Yet the tide of emigration still continued 

 at intervals to roll impetuously from the north; 

 and the succession of martial princes, who repaired 

 the misfortunes of their predecessors, and propped 

 the falling fate of the empire, had to accomplish 

 the labours of Hercules in freeing the Roman ter- 

 ritory from these barbarous invaders. The Goths, 

 who, in the year 250 and the following years, ra- 

 vaged the empire both by sea and land with vari- 

 ous success, but in the end with the almost total 

 loss of their adventurous bands,;}: in the year 269 

 sent out an emigration of immense numbers, with 



* Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. c. x. 

 p. 407, et seq. 8vo. Edit. 1783. 

 t Id. vol. i. c. x. p. 455, 456. 

 X Id. vol. i. c. x. p. 431. 



