"The Christian emperors could not remedy the growing depopulation
of the country, any more than their heathen predecessors. All their
efforts only showed the impotence of government to arrest that
dreadful evil. Sometimes, alarmed at the depopulation, they tried
to mitigate the lot of the farmer, to shield him against the
landlord; upon this the proprietor exclaimed he could no longer pay
the taxes. At other times they abandoned the farmer, surrendered
him to the landlord, and strove to chain him to the soil; but the
unhappy cultivators perished or fled, _and the land became
deserted_. Even in the time of Augustus, efforts were made to
arrest the depopulation at the expense of morals, by encouraging
concubinage. Pertinax granted an immunity from taxes to those who
could _occupy the desert lands of Italy, to the cultivators of the
distant province and the allied kings_. Aurelian did the same.
Probus was obliged to transport from Germany men and oxen to
cultivate Gaul.[9] Maximian and Constantius transported the Franks
and Germans from Picardy and Hainault into Italy; but the
depopulation in the towns and the country alike continued. The
people surrendered themselves in the fields to despair, as a beast
of burden lies down beneath his load and refuses to rise. In vain
the emperor strove, by offers of immunities and exemptions, to
recall the cultivator to his deserted fields. Nothing, could do so.
_The desert extended daily._ At the commencement of the fifth
century there was, _in the Happy Campania, the most fertile
province of the empire, 520,000 jugera_ (320,000 acres) in a state
of nature."[10]
So general, indeed, was the depopulation of the empire in the time of
Justinian, that it suggested to many of the emperors the project of
repeopling those favoured districts by a fresh influx of inhabitants.
"Justinian II. had a great taste for these emigrations. He transported
half the population of Cyprus to a new city near Cyzicus, called
Justinianopolis after its founder. But it was all in vain. The
desolation and ruin of the provinces continued, and up to the very gates
of Constantinople, which was maintained entirely by grain _imported at a
low price from Egypt, and cattle from the Tauric Chersonesus_."[11]
As a natural consequence of this entire or principal dependence of Rome
on foreign or provincial raising of grain, there was, on any
interruption of these foreign supplies, the greatest scarcity and even
famine in the metropolis. All the vigilance of the emperors, which was
constantly directed to this object, could not prevent this from taking
place. Tacitus says, that in the scarcity under Claudius, there only
remained a supply of fifteen days for the city.[12] Famine in Rome was
frequent under Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Claudian laments,
that after Egypt had been assigned to Constantinople, Rome had come to
derive its subsistence solely from Lybia, and depended on the _double_
chances of the seasons and the winds.
----"Nunquam secura futuri,
Semper inops, ventique fidem poscebat et anni."[13]
"When Africa revolted under Gildo, in the reign of Honorius, Rome," says
Gibbon, "was on _the brink of starvation_, from which she was only saved
by large importations _from Gaul_."[14] She still depended on her
provinces; domestic agriculture was ruined. Claudian represents the
genius of ancient Rome bewailing, in pathetic and eloquent terms, her
dependence for food on the nations she had conquered, in words which all
governments rendering their people dependent on foreign supplies would
do well to bear in mind. "Formerly," says the poet, "my prayers used to
be that my legions might triumph on the banks of the Araxes, or that the
consul might display his eagles at Susa; _now all I ask is a supply of
food to avert the extremities of hunger_. The province of Africa, which
furnishes corn to my people, is under the power of Gildo. _He intercepts
our supplies, and our food is at his mercy._ He sells the harvests which
belong to the descendants of Romulus; he possesses the fields purchased
by my blood. The warrior people which conquered the world, now
dishonoured and in want, endures the miserable punishment of peace;
_blockaded by no enemy, they are like the inhabitants of a besieged
town_. Death impends at every moment; there remain only doubtful
supplies for a few days. _My greatness has been my ruin_; I was safer
when my territory was more limited; would that its boundaries were once
more at my gates! But, if I am doomed to perish, at least let me have a
different fate; let me be conquered by another Porsenna; let my city be
burnt by a second Brennus. All things are more tolerable than
hunger."[15]
Nor was the state of Greece, in the later stages of the empire, more
favourable.
"No description could exaggerate the miseries of Greece in the later
stages of the empire. The slave population, which had formerly laboured
for the wealthy, had then disappeared, and the free labourer had sunk
into a serf. The uncultivated plains were traversed by bands of armed
Sclavonians, who settled in great numbers in Thessaly and Macedonia. The
cities of Greece ceased to receive the usual supplies of agricultural
produce from the country; and even Thessalonica, with _its fertile
territory and abundant pastures, was dependent on foreign importation
for relief from famine_. The smaller cities, destitute of the same
advantages of situation, would naturally be more exposed to
depopulation, and sink more rapidly to decay. The roads, after the
seizure of the local funds of the Greek cities by Justinian, were
allowed to go to ruin, and the transport of provisions by land became
difficult. When the Byzantine writers, after the time of Heraclius,
mention the Greeks and Peloponnesus, it is with feelings of aversion and
contempt."[16]
Nor was Asia Minor in a more prosperous condition in the later stages of
the empire. In Asia Minor the decline of the Greek race had been rapid.
This decline, too, must be attributed rather to bad governments than to
hostile invasions; for from the period of the Persian invasion, in the
time of Heraclius, the greater part of that immense country had enjoyed
almost a century of uninterrupted peace. The Persian invasions had never
been very injurious to the sea-coast, where the _Greek cities were
wealthy and numerous_; but the central provinces were entirely ruined.
The fact that extensive districts, once populous and wealthy, _were
already deserts_, is proved by the colonies which Justinian II. settled
in various parts of the country. Population had disappeared even more
rapidly than the agricultural resources of the country."[17]
But while this was the state of matters in Italy, Asia Minor, and
Greece--that is, the heart of the empire--its remoter provinces, Spain,
Lybia, and Egypt, not only exhibited no symptoms of similar decay, but
were, down to the very close of the reigns of the Caesars, in the highest
state of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Listen to Gibbon on this
subject in regard to Spain:--
"The situation of Spain, separated on all sides from the enemies of Rome
by the sea, the mountains, and intermediate provinces, had secured the
long tranquillity of that _remote and sequestered country_; and we may
observe, as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that in a period of
four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the history of
the Roman empire. The cities of Merida, Cordova, Seville, and Tarragona,
were numbered among the most illustrious of the Roman world. The various
plenty of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, was improved and
manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the peculiar
advantages of naval stores contributed to support an extensive and
profitable trade. Many particulars concerning the fertility of Spain may
be found in Huet's _Commerce of the Ancients_, c. 40."[18]
The state of Lybia was equally characteristic of the highest and most
general prosperity, especially in relation to agricultural industry, at
the time when Italy and Greece were thus languishing in the last stage
of decrepitude and decay.
"The long and narrow tract," says Gibbon, "of the African coast was
filled, when the Vandals approached its shores, with frequent monuments
of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of improvement
might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage and the
Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking mind with
the clearest idea of its fertility and cultivation. The country was
_extremely populous_; the inhabitants reserved a liberal supply for
their own use; _and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat_, was
so regular and plentiful, that Africa _deserved the name of the common
granary of Rome and of mankind_."[19]
Nor was the state of Egypt less prosperous in the last ages of the Roman
empire; nor was its condition a less striking contrast to the miserable
and languishing condition of the Italian and Grecian plains. It is thus
described by Mr Finlay,[20] whose recent work has thrown so much light
on the social condition of the inhabitants of the Roman empire in their
later days:--"If the accounts of ancient historians can be relied on,
the population of Egypt had suffered less from the vicious
administration of the Roman empire, and from the Persian invasion, than
any other part of their dominions; for at the time of its conquest by
the Romans it contained seven millions and a half of inhabitants,
exclusive of Alexandria; and in the last days of the empire it nourished
almost as great a number. The Nile spread its fertilizing waters over
the land; the canals were kept in a state sufficient for irrigation; and
the vested capital of Egypt suffered little diminution, whilst war and
oppression annihilated the accumulation of ages over the rest of the
world. The immense wealth and importance of Alexandria, the only port
which Egypt possessed for communicating with the empire, still made it
_one of the first cities in the universe for riches and population_,
though its strength had received a severe blow from the Persian
conquest."[21]
Sicily was another exception from the general decrepitude and ruin of
the Roman empire in the latter reigns of the Caesars. "In the island of
Sicily, the great bulk of the population was Greek, and few portions of
the Greek race _had succeeded so well in preserving their wealth and
property uninjured_."[22]
But in the other parts of the empire, to the north of the Mediterranean,
the agricultural population was, in the time of Heraclius, _absolutely
destroyed_. "The imperial armies," says Finlay, "which, in the time of
Maurice, had waged an active war in Illyria and Thrace, and frequently
invaded the territories of the Avars, had melted away during the
disorders of the reign of Phocas. The loss was irreparable; for in
Europe _no agricultural population remained to supply the means of
forming a body of local militia, or even a body of irregular
troops_."[23]
It may readily be supposed, that so entire a destruction of the rural
population in Europe, as thus took place under the Emperors in the Roman
empire, must have been attended with the most fatal effects to their
means of defence and national power. The inhabitants of towns,
accustomed to sedentary occupations, and habituated to the luxury of
baths, the excitement of theatres, the gratuitous distributions of food,
could not endure the fatigue, privations, and hardships of the military
life. Substitutes were almost universally sought for, and they, amidst
the desolation of the country, could be found only in the semi-barbarous
tribes on the frontier. Thus the defence of the empire came to be
intrusted almost entirely to the arms of the barbarians, and it was hard
to say whether they were most formidable to their friends or foes.
Nothing could supply the place of the rural population on the shores of
the Mediterranean. The legions gave a master to the Roman world, and the
legions were recruited from Gaul, Germany, Britain, and Pannonia. Thus
the dominion of the Capitol was really at an end long before it was
formally subverted; and Rome had received a master from the barbarians
long before the days of Alaric.
This continued splendour and population of the towns, amidst the ruin of
the country, in the declining periods of the Roman empire, has attracted
the particular notice of one of the greatest historians of modern times.
"In the midst," says Sismondi, "of the general desolation of the
country, the continued existence and splendour of the great towns is not
so easily explained; but the same thing is now to be witnessed in
Barbary and Turkey, and in the whole Levant. Wherever despotism
oppresses insulated man, he seeks refuge from its outrages in crowds.
The great Roman towns, in the first three centuries of the empire, were
in great part peopled by artisans, and freedmen, and slaves; but they
contained also a number far greater than in our days of men who,
limiting their wants to the mere support of existence, spent their
lives in indolence. All that population was alike unarmed, unpatriotic,
incapable of defence against a foreign enemy; but as it was collected
together, and at hand, it always inspired fear to domestic authority.
Accordingly, to keep it quiet, there was always a regular gratuitous
distribution of corn in the larger towns, and numerous spectacles in the
theatres, the amphitheatres, and the circus, maintained at the public
expense. The carelessness of the future, the love of pleasure and
indolence, which have always characterised the inhabitants of great
towns, characterised the Roman provincials even to the latest days of
the empire, and in the midst of their greatest calamities. Treves, the
capital of the northern prefecture of Gaul, was not the only city of the
empire which was surprised and pillaged by the barbarians, at the moment
when its citizens, their heads crowned with garlands, were applauding
with enthusiasm the victors in the games of the circus."[24]
The frequent custom of recruiting the legions by means of slaves, in the
later period of the empire, which was wholly unknown in the days of the
Republic, reveals, in the clearest manner, the weakness to which, in
respect of military resources, it had arrived, long before the external
symptoms of decay were visible in its fortunes. Even in the time of
Marcus Aurelius, the legions which were to combat the Quadi and
Marcomanni, on the Danube, were recruited from the servile class.
Justinian went so far as to declare, by a public edict, every slave free
who had served in the army.[25] "At last the army came to be composed
entirely," says Finlay, "of the rudest and most ignorant peasants, of
_enfranchised slaves, and naturalised barbarians_. This increased the
repugnance, already sufficiently great, felt by the better class of
citizens to enter the military life. The mercenaries formed the most
valued and brilliant portions of the army, and it became the fashion to
copy and admire the dress and manners of the barbarian cavalry."[26]
All the ancient historians concur in representing this impossibility of
finding native soldiers in its central provinces, as the main cause of
the overthrow of the empire. And that this, and not the power of the
barbarians, was the real cause of the destruction of the empire, is
proved by the fact, that whenever they were well directed, the
superiority of the legions was as clearly evinced as in the days of
Marius or Caesar. "Whenever the invaders," says Finlay, "met with a
steady and well-combined resistance, they were defeated without much
difficulty. The victorious reigns of Claudius II., Aurelian, and Probus,
prove the immense superiority of the Roman armies when properly
commanded; but the custom which was constantly gaining ground, _of
recruiting the legions from among the barbarians_, reveals the
deplorable state of _depopulation and weakness_ to which three centuries
of despotism and bad administration had reduced the empire."[27]
But amidst this general prostration of the political and military
strength of the Roman empire, in consequence of the decline and
desolation of the _country_, the _great towns_ still continued
flourishing, and wealth to an extraordinary and unparalleled extent
existed among the chief families, some of patrician, some of plebeian
origin. That was the grand characteristic of Rome in its later days. The
country, in the European part of the empire at least, was daily growing
poorer; the cultivation of the fields was neglected; and the provinces,
crushed under the weight of the direct taxes, which had become
unavoidable, had in most cases sunk to half their former number of
inhabitants. But the metropolis, whether in Italy or on the shores of
the Bosphorus, was still the seat of opulence, luxury, and prosperity.
The strength of Constantinople was sufficient to repel the barbarians,
and prolong the life of the empire of the east, for many centuries after
it had ceased to derive effective support from any of its provinces. It
is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus, that when Rome was taken by the
Goths under Alaric, it was still inhabited by 1,200,000 souls, who were
maintained chiefly by the expenditure of seventeen hundred and sixty
great families, many of whom had L160,000 of yearly income, equal to at
least L300,000 a-year of our money.[28] And of the flourishing condition
of the cities of the empire, especially those which were on the shores
of the Mediterranean, even so late as the eighth century, Mr Finlay
gives the following account:--
"The strongest proof of the _wealth and prosperity of the_ CITIES _of
Greece_, even in the last days of the empire, is to be found in the
circumstance of their being able to fit out the expedition which
ventured to attempt wresting Constantinople from the grasp of a soldier
and statesman such as Leo the Isaurian was known to be, when the Greeks
deliberately resolved to overturn his throne. The _rural_ districts, in
the eighth century, were reduced to a _state of desolation_, and the
_towns were flourishing in wealth_. _Agriculture was at the lowest ebb,
and trade in a prosperous condition._"[29] Sismondi gives his valuable
testimony to the same effect:--"It was at this very time, _when industry
in the country was declining_, that the _towns_ of the provinces arrived
_at their highest degree of opulence_. Adrian excited the emulation of
their rich citizens, and he extended to the furthest extremities of the
empire the luxury of monuments and decorations, which had hitherto been
reserved for the illustrious cities which scorned to be the depots of
the civilisation of the world."[30] Such, in a few words, was the
condition, generally speaking, of all the part of the empire to the
north of the Mediterranean, in the decaying period of its existence. The
towns were every where flourishing; but it was in Africa, Sicily, and
Spain alone that agriculture was undecayed. And the decay and ruin of
rural industry, and of the inhabitants of the country to the north of
the Mediterranean, left them no adequate means of resisting the attacks
of the brave but artless barbarians, who there pressed upon the yielding
frontiers of the empire.
Coexistent with this fatal decline in the rural population and
agricultural industry, was the increase of _direct taxation_, which was
so keenly felt and loudly complained of in all the later stages of the
Roman history. This is a branch of the subject of the very highest
importance, because it leads to precisely the same conclusions, as to
the real causes of the fall of Rome, as the others which have been
already considered.
It is well known that when the Romans first conquered Macedonia, the
senate proclaimed a general liberation from taxes and imposts of every
kind to the Roman citizens, as the reward of their victories. This state
of matters, however, could not long continue in an old state charged
with the duty, and under the necessity of keeping up, a large
establishment to maintain its dominion over its subject provinces. For
some time, indeed, the wealth brought by the conquest of Asia and Egypt
into the Roman treasury was so considerable, that the necessity of taxes
levied on its own citizens was not felt; and as long as the people had a
direct share in the government, they took care to uphold an exemption in
their own favour. But when one master was given to the whole Roman
world, this invidious system of one class living upon another class was
erelong abandoned. "Augustus," says Gibbon, "had no sooner assumed the
reins of government, than he frequently intimated the insufficiency of
the tributes from the provinces, and the necessity of throwing an
equitable proportion of the public burdens upon Rome and Italy. In the
prosecution of this unpopular design, however, he advanced with slow and
cautious steps. The introduction of customs was followed by the
establishment of an excise; and the scheme of taxation was completed by
an artful assessment of the real and personal property of the Roman
citizens, who had been exempted from every kind of contribution for
above a century and a half."[31]
Customs on foreign goods imported into Italy was the first species of
taxation attempted on the Roman people. "In the reign of Augustus and
his successor," says the same historian, "duties were imposed on every
kind of merchandise, which, through a thousand channels, flowed to the
great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatever manner the law was
expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the provincial merchant,
who paid the tax. The rate of the customs varied from the eighth to the
fortieth part of the value of the commodity. There is still extant a
long, but imperfect, catalogue of Eastern commodities, which, about the
time of Alexander Severus, were subject to the payment of duties.
Precious stones, Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks, raw
and manufactured, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs, were among the taxed
articles. An excise also was introduced by Augustus, of one _per cent_
on whatever was sold in the markets or by public auction; and this
extended from the most considerable purchase of lands or houses, to
those minute objects which commonly derive their value from their
infinite multitude and daily consumption."[32]
But erelong these indirect taxes proved unproductive, and recourse was
had to the lasting scourge of _direct taxes_. One of 5 per cent on
legacies and inheritances was first imposed by Augustus, and adhered to
by him, in spite of the indignant murmurs of the Roman nobles and
people. The rate was raised by Caracalla to a tenth of all inheritances;
and, when the privilege of Roman citizenship was extended to the whole
provincials of the empire, they were subjected at once both to the
former burdens which they had paid as provincials, and the new tax
levied on them as Roman citizens.[33] From that time, the direct burdens
became daily more oppressive, and at length proved an almost
insurmountable bar to industry. "The noxious weed," says Gibbon, "sprung
up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened
the Roman world with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we
shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the capitation, and
the heavy contributions in corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted
from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the
capital."[34]
These direct taxes soon became fearfully oppressive, and it is proved,
by the clearest evidence, that they were among the leading causes of the
decline of the empire. "The whole landed property of the empire," says
Gibbon, "without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch, was
the object of ordinary taxation, and every new purchaser contracted the
obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate survey was made of
what every citizen should contribute to the public service, and this was
made anew every fifteen years. The number of slaves and cattle
constituted an essential part of the report; _an oath was administered
to the proprietors, which obliged them to disclose the true state of
their affairs_; and any attempt to prevaricate or elude the vigilance of
the legislature, was severely watched, and punished as a capital crime,
which included the double guilt of treason and sacrilege. A large
portion of the tribute was paid in money; and, of the current coin of
the empire, _gold alone could be legally accepted_. The remainder of the
taxes, according to the proportion observed in the annual indiction, was
levied in a manner still more direct and still more oppressive.
According to the different value of lands, their real produce, in the
various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was
transported by the labour, or at the expense of the provincials, to the
imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed for
the use of the court, the army, and the two capitals, Rome and
Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
obliged to make _considerable purchases_, that they were strictly
prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money
the value of those articles which were exacted in kind."[35]
"Either from accident or design, the mode of assessment seemed to unite
the substance of a land to the form of a capitation-tax. The return
which was sent from every province and district expressed the number of
tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The latter
of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that each
province and each head was rated at a certain sum, was universally
received not only in the popular but the legal computation. Some idea of
the weight of these contributions _per head_ may be formed by the
details preserved of the taxation of Gaul. The rapacious ministers of
Constantine had exhausted the wealth of that province, by exacting
twenty-five gold pieces (L12, 10s.) for the annual tribute of every
head. The humane policy of his successor reduced the computation to
seven pieces. A moderate proportion between these two extremes of
extravagant oppression and transient indulgence, therefore, may be fixed
at sixteen gold pieces, or about _nine pounds_ sterling, as the common
standard of the impositions of Gaul. The enormity of this tax is
explained by the circumstance, that, as the great bulk of the people
were slaves, the rolls of tribute were filled only with the names of
citizens in decent circumstances. The taxable citizens in Gaul did not
exceed 500,000; and their annual payments were about L4,500,000 of our
money; a fourth part only of the modern taxes of France."[36] The
ordinary land-tax in the eastern provinces was a tenth, though in some
cases it rose by the operation of the survey to a fifth, in others fell
to a twentieth of the produce. It was valued for a term of years, and
paid, unless when exacted in kind, commonly in money.[37]
There was one circumstance which rendered the direct taxes peculiarly
oppressive in the declining periods of the Roman empire, and that was
the _solid_ obligation, as the lawyers term it, which attached to the
municipalities, into which the whole empire was divided, of making good
the amount of their fixed assessment to the public treasury. Of course,
if the municipality was declining, and the same quota required to be
made up from its assessable inhabitants by the magistracy, who were
responsible for its amount, it augmented the burden on those who
remained within its limits; and if they dwindled, by public calamities
or emigration, to a small number, it might, and often did become of a
crushing weight. This system is general over the East; and its
oppressive effect in the declining stage of states, is the chief cause
of the rapid decay of Oriental empires. There is a remarkable authentic
instrument, which attests the ruinous influence of this system in the
later stages of the Roman dominion. This is a rescript of the Emperior
Majorian, which sets forth:--"The municipal corporations, the lesser
senates, as antiquity has justly styled them, deserve to be considered
as the heart of the cities, and the sinews of the Republic. And yet so
low are they now reduced, by the injustice of magistrates and the
venality of collectors, that many of their numbers, renouncing their
dignity and their country, have taken refuge in distant and obscure
exile." He strongly urges, and even ordains their return to their
respective cities; but he removes the grievances which had forced them
to desert the exercises of their municipal functions, by directing that
they shall be responsible, not for the _whole sum_ assessed on the
district, but only for the payments they have actually received, and for
the defaulters who are still indebted to the public.[38] But this humane
and wise interposition was as shortlived as it was equitable. Succeeding
emperors returned to the convenient system of making the municipal
corporations responsible for the sum assessed on their respective
districts, and it continued to be the general law of the empire down to
its very latest day. Sismondi, in his _Decadence de l'Empire Romaine_,
and Michelet, in his _Gaule sous les Romains_, concur in ascribing to
this system the rapid decline and depopulation of the empire in its
later stages.
But although there can be no question that the conclusions of these
learned writers are in great part well founded, yet this system of
taxation by no means explains the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
It requires no argument, indeed, to show, that such a system of solid
obligations, and of levying a certain sum on districts without any
regard to the decline in the resources or number of those who were to
pay them, must, in a _declining_ state of society, be attended with the
most disastrous, and it may be in the end fatal consequences. But it
does not explain how society should be declining. _That_ is the matter
which it behoves us to know. When the reverse is the case--when industry
and population are _advancing_, the imposition of fixed tributes on
districts is not only no disadvantage, but the greatest possible
advantage to a state--witness the benefit of the perpetual settlement to
the ryots of Hindostan--or of a perpetual quit-rent to English
landholders. And that, bad as this system was when applied to a
declining state of society, it was not the cause of the ruin of the
Roman empire, and would not have proved injurious if the state had been
advancing, is decisively proved by several considerations.
1. In the first place, the taxes and system of municipalities, being
responsible for a fixed sum, was not confined to the European provinces
of the Roman dominion, viz.--Italy, Greece, Gaul, Macedonia, and
Romelia, where the progress of decay was so rapid, but it was the
general law of the empire, and obtained equally in Spain, Lybia, Egypt,
and Sicily; as in the provinces which lay to the north of the
Mediterranean. But these latter provinces, it has been shown, were, when
overrun by the barbarians about the year 400, not only nowise in a state
of decrepitude, but in _the very highest state of affluence and
prosperity_. They had become, and deserved the appellation of, "the
common granary of Rome and of the world." They maintained the
inhabitants of Italy, Greece, Rome, and Constantinople, by the export of
their magnificent crops of grain. Spain was at least twice as populous
as it is at this time, Lybia contained twenty millions, Egypt seven
millions of inhabitants. Sicily was in affluence and prosperity, while
the adjoining plains of Italy were entirely laid out in pasturage, or
returned to a state of desolation and insalubrity. It is in vain,
therefore, to seek a solution of the decline of the empire in a system,
which, _universally_ applied, left some parts of it in the last stages
of decrepitude and decay, and others in the highest state of prosperity
and affluence.
2. In the next place, the taxes of the empire were by no means at first
of such weight as to account, if there had been nothing else in the
case, for the decay of its industry. The tax on inheritances, it has
been shown, was at first five, afterwards ten _per cent_; and the
land-tax was ten _per cent_ on the produce. The former tax of ten _per
cent_ on successions, is the present legacy-tax on movable succession to
persons not related to the deceased, in England; and ten _per cent_ on
the produce, is the tithe, and no more than the tithe, which has so long
existed in the European monarchies, and even when coexisting with many
other and more oppressive burdens, has nowhere proved fatal to industry.
Income of every sort paid ten _per cent_ in Great Britain during the
war--the land paid the tithe and poor's-rate in addition--and the other
taxes yielded a sum four times as great; yet industry of every kind
flourished to an extraordinary degree during that struggle. Ever since
the termination of the Revolution, the land-tax in France has been far
heavier than it was in Rome, varying, according to the _Cadastre_, or
valuation, from fifteen to twenty-five _per cent_; but yet it is well
known public wealth and agricultural produce have increased in an
extraordinary degree during that period. It was not, therefore, the
weight of the impositions, but the simultaneous circumstances, which
rendered the northern provinces of the empire _unable to bear them_,
which was the real cause of the ruin of its industry.
3. In the _third_ place, whether the magnitude of the naval and military
establishments, or the absolute amount of its public revenue, is taken
into consideration, it is equally apparent that the Roman empire was at
first not only noways burdened with heavy, but was blessed with
_singularly light_ government impositions. Gibbon states the population
of the whole empire, in the time of Augustus, at 120,000,000, or about
half of what all Europe, to the westward of the Ural mountains, now
contains; and its naval and military establishments amounted to 450,000
armed men--"a force," says the historian, "which, formidable as it may
seem, was equalled by a monarch of the last century, (Louis XIV.)
_whose kingdom was confined within a single province of the Roman
empire_."[39] Compared with the military and naval forces of the
European powers in time of peace, this must seem a most moderate public
establishment. France, in the time of Napoleon, with 42,000,000
inhabitants, had 850,000 regular soldiers in arms, besides 100,000
sailors; and Great Britain, in its European dominions alone, with a
population of 18,000,000 souls, had above 500,000 regular soldiers and
sailors in the public service. France has now, in peace, with a
population of 32,000,000 souls, about 360,000 men, between the army and
navy, in the public service; and England, with a population of
28,000,000, upwards of 150,000, besides double that number in India.
Russia, with 62,000,000 inhabitants, has 460,000 soldiers in the public
service. Austria, with 33,000,000, has 260,000. All these peace
establishments are twice as heavy in proportion to the numbers of the
people, as that of Rome was in the time of Augustus; and, in subsequent
reigns, the number of armed men maintained by the state, was so far from
increasing, that it was constantly diminishing, and, in the time of
Justinian, had sunk down to 140,000 soldiers, maintained by an empire
more extensive than that of Russia at this moment.
4. The same conclusion results from the consideration of the absolute
amount of the public revenue levied in the Roman empire, compared with
what is extracted from modern states. Gibbon estimates the public
revenue of the whole empire in the time of Augustus, at "fifteen or
sixteen millions sterling;"[40] and in the time of Constantine the
revenue derived from Gaul was L4,500,000 a-year.[41] The first of these
sums is less than a _third_ of what is now levied in time of peace on
Great Britain, with less than thirty millions of souls, instead of the
hundred and twenty millions who swelled the population rolls of the
Roman empire: the last is little more than an _eighth_ of what is now
extracted from France, having nearly the same limits as ancient Gaul.
Supposing that the value of money has declined, from the discovery of
the South American mines, a half, (and at _this_ time, owing to the
decline of those mines, it has not sunk more,) still it is apparent that
the public burdens of modern times are at least three times as heavy as
they were in the Roman empire in the highest period of its greatness. As
its strength and military establishment constantly declined after that
period, there is no reason to suppose that the absolute amount of the
public taxes was at any subsequent time greater, although
unquestionably, from the decline in the resources of those who were to
bear them, they were felt as infinitely more oppressive. And that these
taxes were not disproportioned to the strength of the empire, when its
resources were unimpaired, and its industry flourishing, is decisively
proved by the extremely prosperous condition in which it was during the
eighty years when Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines filled
the imperial throne. "At that period," says Gibbon, "notwithstanding the
propensity of mankind to exalt the past and depreciate the present, the
tranquil and prosperous condition of the empire was warmly felt and
honestly confessed by the provincials as well as the Romans."[42] "They
affirm," says a contemporary writer, "that, with the increase of the
arts, the human species has visibly multiplied. They celebrate the
increasing beauty of the cities, the beautiful face of the country,
cultivated and adorned like an immense garden, and the long festival of
peace which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their ancient
animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future danger."[43]
Ancient as well as modern historians are full of complaints, in the
later periods of the Roman empire, of the prodigious increase of wealth
in the hands of the rich, and decline in the remuneration of industry to
the poor. Their complaints on this subject are so numerous, and
supported by such an array of facts, as to leave no room for doubt that
they are well founded. Indeed, it seems to have been generally true of
the whole empire north of the Mediterranean, what Mr Finlay shows was
the case down to the very latest periods in Greece, that while industry
and population in the country were ruined, the towns were in a state of
affluence and prosperity. Even so early as the time of Plutarch, the
accumulation of _debts_ had come to be complained of as an extensive
evil.[44] "These debts," says Finlay, "were generally contracted to
Roman money-lenders. So injurious did their effects become to the
provinces, that they afforded to one class the means of _accumulating
enormous fortunes by forcing others into abject poverty_. The property
of the provincial debtors was at length transferred to a very great
extent to Roman creditors. Instead of invigorating the upper classes, by
substituting an industrious timocracy for an idle aristocracy, it had a
very different effect. It introduced new feelings of rivalry and
distrust, by filling the country with foreign landlords. The weight of
debts seems to have been the chief cause of revolutions in the ancient
world. The Greeks could not long maintain the struggle, and they sunk
gradually lower in wealth, until their poverty introduced an altered
state of society, in which they learned the prudential habits of small
proprietors, and escape not only from the eye of history but even of
antiquarian research."[45]
This constant tendency of wealth, in the later periods of the Roman
empire, to accumulate in the hands of the great capitalists, accompanied
by the progressive deterioration of the condition of the middle and
working classes, is amply proved and forcibly illustrated by Sismondi,
in his admirable work on the Decline of the Roman Empire. "During the
long peace," says he, "which followed the victories of Trajan and Marcus
Aurelius, those colossal fortunes were accumulated, which, according to
Pliny, ruined Italy and the empire.[46] A single proprietor, by degrees,
came to buy up whole provinces, the conquest of which had in former days
furnished the occasion of many triumphs to the generals of the Republic.
While this huge capitalist was amassing riches, wholly disproportioned
to the capacity of man, the _once numerous and respectable, but now
beggared, middle class, disappeared from the face of the earth_. In
districts where so many brave and industrious citizens were to be seen
in former times, alike ready to defend or cultivate their fields, were
to be found nothing but slaves, who rapidly declined in number as the
fields came to be exclusively devoted to pasturage. The fertile plains
of Italy ceased to nourish its inhabitants; Rome depended entirely for
its subsistence on the harvests which its fleets brought it from Sicily,
Africa, and Egypt. From the capital to the farthest extremity of the
provinces, _depopulation and misery in the country coexisted with
enormous wealth an the towns_. From this cause the impossibility of
recruiting the legions with native Romans was experienced even in the
time of Marcus Aurelius. In his war against the Quadi and the
Marcomanni, which had been preceded by a long peace, he was obliged to
recruit the legions with the slaves and robbers of Rome."[47] It is
impossible to give a stronger proof of the extent to which this enormous
evil of the vast fortunes accumulated in the towns, and the entire ruin
of industry in the country, had gone in the last days of the empire,
than is to be found in the fact already mentioned, that when Rome was
taken by Alaric, in the year 404 after Christ, while Italy could furnish
no force to resist the invaders, the capital itself contained seventeen
hundred and sixty great families, many of them with incomes of L160,000
a-year, equal to L300,000 of our money, whose expenditure maintained an
urban population of 1,200,000 souls.[48]
It may readily be conceived, that when this prodigious concentration of
wealth in the hands of the great proprietors of towns, and ruin of
industry in the country, came to coexist with the _solid_ obligations of
the rural municipalities for the sum assessed on their districts, the
burden of the public taxes, though light at first, compared with what is
little complained of in modern times, came to be altogether
overwhelming. This accordingly was the case in all the Northern
provinces of the empire in its later stages. What every where preceded
their ruin, was the desertion of the inhabitants in consequence of the
crushing weight of the public burdens. From the entire failure of the
indirect taxes amidst the ruin of agricultural, and the imposition of
taxation on urban industry, it had become necessary to make progressive
additions to the direct taxes till they became exterminating. "Three
great direct taxes," says Sismondi, "alike ruinous, impended over the
citizens. The first was the Indictions or Land-Tax, estimated in general
at a tenth of the produce, or a third of the clear revenue, and often
doubled or tripled by the _Super indictions_ which the necessities of
the provinces compelled them to impose. Secondly: the Capitation-Tax,
which sometimes rose as high as 300 francs (L12) ahead on the free and
taxable citizens; and, third, the Corvees, or forced contributions in
labour, which were for the service of the imperial estates, or the
maintenance of the public roads. These direct imposts in the declining
days of the empire, so entirely ruined the proprietors of rural estates,
that they abandoned them in all quarters. Vast provinces in the interior
were deserted; the enrolment for the army became daily more difficult
from the disappearance of the rural population; the magistrates of
municipalities in town or country, rendered responsible for the
assessment of their districts and the levy of their quota of soldiers,
fled the country, or sought under a thousand pretexts to escape the
perilous honour of public office. So far did the desertion of the
magistracy go in the time of Valentinian, (364-375, after Christ,) that
when that cruel tyrant ordered the heads of three magistrates of towns
in a particular province to be brought to him for some alleged offences,
'Will your Imperial Majesty be pleased to direct,' said the prefect
Florentius, 'what we are to do in those towns _where three magistrates
cannot be found_?' The order was upon this revoked."[49]
The disastrous state of the rural districts amidst this accumulation of
evils is thus forcibly described by Mr Finlay:--"In many provinces, the
higher classes had been completely exterminated. The loss of their
slaves and serfs, who had often been carried away by the invaders, had
reduced many to the humble condition of labourers. Others had emigrated,
and abandoned their land to the cultivators, from being unable to obtain
any revenue from it in the miserable state to which the capture of the
stock, the loss of a market, and the destruction of the agricultural
buildings had reduced the country. In many of the towns, the diminished
population was reduced to misery by the ruin of the rural districts in
their neighbourhood. The higher classes in the country disappeared under
the weight of the municipal duties they were called upon to perform.
Houses remained unlet; and even when let, the portion of rent which was
not absorbed by the imperial taxes was insufficient to supply the
demands of the local expenditure. The labourer and the artisan alone
could find bread; the walls of cities were allowed to fall into ruins;
the streets were neglected, public buildings had become useless;
aqueducts remained unrepaired; internal communications ceased; and with
the extinction of the wealthy and educated classes in the provincial
towns, the local prejudices of the lower orders became the law of
society."[50]
Such, on a nearer survey, was the condition of the Roman empire which
preceded its fall. From it may be seen how widely the real causes of its
decline differed from the vague generalities of Montesquieu, that the
ruin of the empire was the necessary consequence of its extension; or
the still vaguer declamations of the scholars, that it was the
corruption incident to great and long-continued wealth which enervated
the people, and rendered them incapable of defending themselves against
the Northern nations. In truth, both these causes did operate, and that
too in a most powerful manner, in bringing about the ruin of the empire;
but they did so, not in the way supposed by these authors, but in an
_indirect way_, by inducing a new set of evils, which destroyed industry
in the most important of its provinces, by depriving the industrious of
a market for their industry, and rendering the public burdens
overwhelming, by changing the value of money. The operation of these
causes can now be distinctly traced by us, because we feel them working
among ourselves: their existence has not hitherto been suspected, or
their effects traced by philosophers, because no state in modern Europe
but our own, in recent times, had come within the sphere of their
influence. And to see what these causes really were, it is only
necessary to recall, in a few propositions, to the reader's mind, the
general result of the foregoing deduction:--
I. During the Republic, and till the commencement of the empire,
agriculture was in the most flourishing state in Italy; and it was in
its sturdy, free cultivators, that the legions were recruited which
conquered the world.
II. _From the time of Tiberius_, cultivation declined in the Italian and
Grecian plains, and continued to do so to the fall of the empire.
Pasturage came to supersede agriculture; population disappeared in the
fields; the race of free cultivators, the strength of the legions, were
ruined; the flocks and herds were tended only by slaves; the small
proprietors became bankrupt, or fled the country; and the whole land in
the European provinces of the empire fell into the hands of a limited
number of territorial magnates, who resided at Rome or Constantinople,
and mainly upheld, by their profuse expenditure, the prosperity of those
capitals of the empire.
III. In the midst of the general decline of rural industry in all the
provinces to the north of the Mediterranean, the wealth and prosperity
of the great cities remained undecayed. The small provincial towns were
in great part ruined; but the great cities, especially such as were on
the sea-coast, continued flourishing, and received in their ample bounds
all the refluent population from the country. Rural industry languished
and expired, but commerce was undecayed; the fortunes of the great
capitalists were daily accumulating; and in no period in the history of
mankind, were urban incomes so great as in the city of Rome, on the eve
of its capture by the Goths.
IV. While this was the state of matters to the north of the
Mediterranean, that is, in the heart of the empire, the remoter
agricultural provinces of Spain, Sicily, Lybia, and Egypt, were in the
very highest state of prosperity; they fed all the great cities of the
Roman world by their immense exportations of grain, and yet enough
remained, down to their conquest by the Vandals under Genseric, to
maintain a vast population at home, greater than has ever since existed
in those countries, in a state of affluence and comfort.
V. Taxation, from the time of its first introduction under Augustus, was
at first chiefly indirect, and by no means oppressive. Gradually,
however, the produce of the indirect taxes failed, or became inadequate
to the wants of the empire, and recourse was had to direct taxes,
levied chiefly on landed property and successions. But these direct
taxes were at first light, and not a third part of those levied on
Britain or France during the war; and the public establishments of the
Roman government were not a fourth, in proportion to the population, of
those now maintained by the great European monarchies during peace.
VI. In process of time, however, the resources of the people, in the
principal provinces of the empire, and especially those to the north of
the Mediterranean, declined to such a degree, that though the military
and naval establishments of the empire were reduced to a third of their
former amount, and became inadequate to defend its frontiers against its
enemies, the direct taxes required to be continually increased, till
they became so oppressive as to destroy industry, and prove the
immediate cause of the depopulation and ruin of the empire.
Such are the _facts_, as established by the unanimous and concurring
testimony of all the best informed historians; and now for the causes
which produced these facts. They are set forth and supported by an
equally clear and undisputable array of authorities.
* * * * *
Even so early as the latter days of the Republic, the system was
introduced of feeding the Roman people with grain derived by tribute
from the provinces. In the time of Augustus, the annual quantity
distributed to the poorer citizens of Rome was 1,200,000 _modii_, or
35,156 quarters. But _Tiberius went a step further, and actually gave
bounties on the importation of foreign grain_. "An enormous quantity,"
says Finlay, "of grain was distributed in this way, which was received
as tribute from the provinces. Caesar found 320,000 persons receiving
this gratuity. It is true he reduced the number to one-half. The greater
part of this grain was drawn from Sicily, Africa, and Egypt. In the time
of Alexander, generally 75,000 _modii_ was distributed daily. This
distribution enabled the poor to live in idleness, and was itself
extremely injurious to industry; but another arrangement was adopted by
the Roman government, which rendered the _cultivation of land around
Rome unprofitable to the proprietors_. A large sum was annually employed
by the state _in purchasing grain in the provinces_, and in transporting
this supply to Rome, where it was _sold at a fixed price to the bakers_.
Augustus appointed an officer, styled _Prefectus Annonae_, whose duty was
to provide by government purchases for the subsistence of the people. An
allowance was also made _to the private importers of grain_, in order to
ensure a constant supply.[51] In this way, a very large sum was expended
_to keep grain cheap in a city_ where a variety of circumstances tended
to make it dear. This singular system of annihilating capital, _and
ruining agriculture and industry_, was so deeply rooted in the Roman
administration, that similar gratuitous distributions of grain were
established at Antioch and Alexandria, and introduced into
Constantinople when that city became the capital of the empire."[52]
The necessary effect of this system was the cessation of agriculture in
Italy, the ruin of the small proprietors, and the engrossing of the land
in the provinces by a few great landholders, who cultivated their
extensive estates by means of slaves. "Riches, far exceeding the wealth
of modern sovereigns, flowed into the hands of the great proprietors;
villas and parks were formed over all Italy on a scale of the most
stupendous grandeur; and land _became more valuable as hunting-ground
than as productive farms_. The same habits were introduced into the
provinces. In the neighbourhood of Rome, agriculture was ruined by the
public distribution of grain received as tribute from the provinces,
and by the bounty granted to merchants importing to secure a maximum
price of bread. The same system proceeded in the provinces; and similar
distributions at Alexandria and Antioch must have been equally
injurious."[53] When Constantine established his new capital on the
shores of the Bosphorus, he was under the necessity of adopting, and
even extending, the same ruinous system. "Wealthy individuals from the
provinces were compelled to keep up houses at Constantinople, pensions
were conferred upon them, and a right to distributions of provisions to
a considerable amount was annexed to those dwellings. These rations
consisted of bread, oil, wine, meat, and formed an important branch of
revenue even to the better class of citizens. These distributions were
entirely different from the public ones at Rome, which were established
as a gratification by the state to the poor citizens who had no other
means of livelihood. The tribute of grain from Egypt was appropriated to
supply Constantinople, and that of Africa was left for the consumption
of Rome. This was the tie which bound the capital to the emperors, and
the cause of the toleration shown to its factions. They both felt they
had a common interest in supporting the despotic power by which the
provinces were drained of money to support the expenditure of the court,
and supply provisions for the people."[54]
Although, however, these public distributions of grain in the chief
towns of the empire had some effect in checking the cultivation of corn
in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, by depriving its cultivators of their
best market, yet _the private importation of grain_ from these great
corn countries must have been a far more serious and general evil.
Gibbon states the number who received rations at Constantinople daily in
the time of Constantine at 80,000, and in Rome in the time of Tiberius
it was 180,000. Supposing the other great towns were fed in the same
proportion, perhaps a million of persons in the Roman world were
nourished at the expense of the state on Egyptian or African grain. But
a million of persons consume annually a million of quarters of grain;
not a sixtieth part of the annual consumption of the British empire at
this time, and probably not a two-hundredth part required by the
120,000,000 souls who composed the Roman empire in the days of the
Antonines. But though the state paupers were thus but a small fraction
of the whole consumers of foreign grain, yet the _general importation
was immense_, and became erelong so great as to constitute the entire
source from which the population of Italy, as well as Constantinople and
the adjacent provinces of Romelia, Macedonia, and Greece, were fed. It
was this _general importation_, not the gratuitous distributions, which
ruined Italian agriculture; for it alone was on a scale commensurate
with the population of the Italian peninsula, and could alone account
for its general ruin. Tacitus expressly says, it was the _preference_
given to African agriculture, not the gratuitous distributions, which
destroyed Italian cultivation. "At, Hercule, olim ex Italia legionibus
longinquas in provincias commeatus portabantur: nec nunc infecunditate
laboratur; _sed Africam_ POTIUS _et Egyptum excercemus, navibusque et
casibus vita populi Romani permissa est_.[55]" The supply of grain for
the Roman world was entirely obtained from Spain, Sicily, Africa, and
Egypt, while Greece was maintained by corn imported from Poland.[56] It
was not that the Italian and Grecian fields had become sterile: Tacitus
expressly says the reverse,--"_nec_ nunc infecunditate laboratur." But
the country in which grain produced fifteen fold, as Italy did, could
not compete with that which produced sixty or eighty fold, on the banks
of the Nile. Nor could the industry of the centre of the empire, where
money was plentiful, comparatively speaking, and labour was therefore
dear, stand against the competition of the remoter provinces, where it
was scarce, and labour was therefore cheap.
The ruin of Italian and Grecian agriculture from this cause is so
evident, that it is admitted by the ablest advocates of an unlimited
freedom in the corn trade. "The first effect of this system," says a
late able and learned writer on the liberal side, "_was the ruin of
Italian agriculture_. The natural market for the corn of the Italian
farmer was, to a great extent, destroyed by the artificial supplies
obtained from the provinces. Hence, as Dureau de la Malle has remarked,
(ii. 218,) the history of the seventh and eighth centuries of Rome
presents this singular contrast--that the agriculture, the population,
and products of Italy, diminish progressively as she extends her
conquests and power. The fatal influence which the gratuitous supplies
from the provinces would exercise upon the native agriculture, was
perceived by Augustus; but he abandoned his intention of altering the
system, from a conviction it would be restored by his successor. The
result was, that southern and central Italy, instead of being tilled by
a race of hardy active farmers, themselves freemen, and working on their
own land, was divided into plantations cultivated by slaves."[57] This
explains how it came to pass that Spanish agriculture took such a start
from _the time of Tiberius_; and how, in the general ruin of the empire,
Spain, Africa, and Egypt, were the only provinces which retained their
prosperity. It will be recollected that it was in the reign of Tiberius
that bounties were first given by the Roman government to the private
importers of foreign grain.
Of the main dependence of the Western empire in its declining days on
Africa, not merely for the necessary supply of food, but even for the
chief resources and strength of the state in the midst of the desolation
of its European fields, Sismondi gives a striking account--"The loss of
Africa was at this period, (439 after Christ,) perhaps the greatest
calamity which the empire of the West could have undergone. It was its
only province the defence of which cost no trouble; the only one from
which _they drew money, arms, and soldiers, without its ever requiring
any back_. It was at the same time the granary of Rome and of Italy. The
gratuitous distributions of grain at Rome, Milan, and Ravenna, had, over
the whole Italian peninsula, destroyed the cultivation of grain.
Experience had proved that the return could not pay its expense; and the
reason was, that the more fertile fields of Africa furnished a part of
the harvest destined for the nourishment of the people of Italy. The
sudden stoppage of that supply by the conquest of Africa by the Vandals,
caused a cruel famine in Italy; which still further reduced its wretched
inhabitants."[58] And so entirely did Constantinople become dependent on
foreign importation of sea-borne grain from Egypt and the Ukraine for
its support, that "when the Persians, in the year 618, overran Egypt,
and stopped the usual supplies of grain from that province, the famine
became so alarming, that the government determined upon transferring
_the seat of empire to Carthage_ in Africa, as the most likely point
from whence the dominion of Syria and Egypt might be regained."[59] The
latter of these had long been regarded as _the most valuable province of
the empire_.[60]
When this entire dependence of the great cities in the northern parts of
the empire, for centuries together, on Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt,
is considered, it must with every rational mind cease to be a matter of
surprise that its west and northern provinces declined in industry and
population; that these grain provinces to the south of the Mediterranean
alone retained their numbers and prosperity; and that under the constant
decline, in the European provinces, in the market for agricultural
produce, the rural population disappeared, and the recruiting of the
army in the country became impossible. It is not surprising that while
they were enrolling slaves in Italy, and enlisting barbarians on the
Danube and the Rhine, to defend the frontiers, from Africa and Spain
alone they drew supplies both of money and soldiers, without requiring
to send back any. The latter provinces were the granary and garden of
the empire; the only part of it where rural industry met with
remunerating prices or adequate encouragement. And the same
circumstances explain in a great degree how it happened, that while the
_rural_ districts of Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Romelia, were
continually declining in population, rental, and revenue, their _towns_,
especially on the sea-coast, were, down to the last days of their
existence, in a flourishing condition. These towns were the seat of
manufactures and commerce. It was by their capital that the vast corn
trade by which all the cities of the empire were fed was carried on. It
was their fabrics which mainly furnished the means of purchasing the
immense proportion of this grain, which, being imported by private
importers, required to be paid for in some species of manufactured
produce. And the reason why grain was raised so much cheaper, and
therefore profitably, in Egypt, Lybia, and Spain, than in Italy and
Greece, was, partly, that the former of these countries were by nature
blessed with a more prolific soil and a warmer sun than the latter; and,
partly, that as Rome and Constantinople were the two capitals of the
empire, the greater part of its wealth was attracted, either by taxes,
tribute, or the concourse of the rich, to them, and, consequently, the
abundance of riches rendered money cheap, labour dear, and cultivation,
when exposed to foreign competition, unprofitable.
But there was more in the case than this. Simultaneously with the vast
and increasing importation of foreign grain, which at length destroyed
cultivation in all the northern provinces of the empire, a _continual
diminution of its circulating medium_ was going forward; and it was to
the combined and cotemporaneous operation of these two causes, that the
ruin of the empire is beyond all question to be ascribed.
So early as the days of Tiberius, the abstraction of the gold and silver
currency of the empire by the incessant drain of foreign commerce, was
loudly complained of by the Roman writers; and there is the most
decisive proof, that in the course of time the supply of the precious
metals on the empire became so inadequate to the wants of its
inhabitants, that their value was enhanced to a great and ruinous
degree. It was the commerce of the East which first induced this
destructive drain upon the metallic treasures of the empire. "The
objects," says Gibbon, "of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling;
silk--a pound of which was esteemed worth a pound of gold--precious
stones, and a variety of aromatics, were the chief articles. The labour
and risks of the voyage were rewarded with almost incredible profit; but
it was made on Roman subjects, and at the expense of the public. As the
nations of Arabia and India were contented with the produce and
manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans,
was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a
complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the pursuit of
female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a writer
of an inquisitive but censorious temper, (Pliny,) at L800,000 sterling.
Such was the style of discontent brooding over the dark prospect of
approaching poverty."[61] Eight hundred thousand pounds a-year,
equivalent to about two millions of our money, must have been a severe
drain upon the supply of the precious metals in the Roman empire; and
we, who have seen in 1839 the Bank of England reel, and the United
States bank fall, under the effect of an exportation of six or seven
millions of sovereigns to buy foreign grain in a single year, can
appreciate the effect of such a constant drain upon a state, the
metallic resources of which were much less considerable than those of
England at this time.
The immense importation also of African and Egyptian grain, which
continued from the time of Tiberius down to the very close of the
empire, must have occasioned a great additional abstraction of the
precious metals from the Roman world. It has already been shown that a
very small proportion of the grain imported from these distant provinces
was remitted in the shape of tribute. By far the greater part, probably
nineteen-twentieths of the whole supply, was imported by private
merchants for sale, as it could be got from them cheaper than it could
be raised at home. This imported corn, of course, required to be paid
for in something. But the inhabitants of the countries from which it
came--Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt--for the most part slaves,
blessed with a fine climate, requiring little covering, and nearly
destitute of artificial wants, did not require, and could not consume,
any considerable amount of Italian or Grecian fabrics. Thus, by far the
greatest part of the price of the imported grain was paid in gold and
silver, for which there is a constant demand in all countries, savage or
civilized. A nation which imports foreign grain largely, _must_ in all
ages export the precious metals as largely; because the corn, of course,
is brought from those countries where it is raised the cheapest--and the
countries where this is the case, are those where labour is cheap, money
scarce, and artificial wants unknown. Money is what these countries
want, and money is what their surplus produce is nearly all exchanged
for. And this explains how it happened, that in the decline of the
empire, Spain, Africa, and Egypt, alone retained their flourishing
aspect, and were the only provinces from which money and soldiers could
be obtained, while they required none. The whole commerce between them
and Italy, or Greece, was one in which grain was exchanged for the
precious metals; and when they once got these, great part was hoarded,
as it now is in the East, and very little ever returned.
In addition to this, the mines which supplied the Roman world failed to
a considerable extent under the emperors. "The poverty of Greece, as of
the whole empire," says Finlay, "was further increased _by the gradual
rise in the value of the precious metals_; an evil which began to be
generally felt about the time of Nero, and affected Greece with great
severity, from the altered distribution of wealth in the country with
which it was attended. Greece had once been rich in mines, which had
been a source of wealth and prosperity to Siphnos and Atticus, and had
laid the foundation of the power of Philip of Macedon. The fiscal
measures of the Romans soon rendered it a _ruinous speculation for
individuals to attempt working mines of the precious metals_; and, in
the hands of the state, they soon proved unprofitable. Many mines were
exhausted; and even _though the value of the precious metals was
enhanced_, some mines beyond the sphere of the Roman power _were
abandoned_ from those causes which, after the second century of the
Christian era, produced a sensible diminution in the commercial
transactions of the Old Hemisphere.[62] Greece shared in the general
decay: her commerce and manufactures, being confined to supplying the
consumption of a diminished and impoverished population, sunk into
insignificancy. _An accumulation of debts became general throughout the
country_, and formed an extensive evil, as already observed, in the time
of Plutarch."[63]
As this great diminution on the supply, and drain upon the treasures of
the precious metals in the time of the emperors, lowered the value of
every species of produce, so it proportionally augmented debts, and
swelled the already overgrown fortunes of the capitalists. What Finlay
says of Greece was true of the whole European provinces of the
empire:--"_The property of the Grecian debtors was at last transferred
to a very great extent to the Roman creditors._"[64] The gradual
diminution in the supply of, or abstraction of the precious metals, by
contracting the currency, lowered prices, and thus diminished the
returns of industry; while it proportionally augmented debts, and added
to the fortunes of the great capitalists and landholders. This again
produced another effect upon the manners of the inhabitants of the great
cities, which had an equally powerful effect in increasing the drain
upon that portion of the precious metals which was employed in the
public currency. The rich patricians of Rome, Antioch, and
Constantinople, possessed of colossal fortunes to which nothing in
modern times will bear a comparison, and nursed in habits of luxury and
expense beyond any thing we can even conceive, daily augmented the
amount of their immense incomes, which was devoted to the purposes of
extravagance. "The historians of the second and third centuries," says
Finlay, "are filled with lamentations on this subject."[65] It is not
surprising that it was so. Men possessed, in private stations, of as
much as three or four hundred thousand pounds a-year of modern money,
could not get through their incomes without indulging in the habitual
purchase of the most costly articles. Society in this way had come to
verify the saying of Bacon--"Above all things, good policy is to be used
that the treasure and money in a state _be not gathered into few hands_.
For otherwise, a state may _have a great stock and yet starve_. And
money is like muck, not good unless it be spread."
Hence the consumption and permanent fixing of gold and silver in the
form of plate and costly ornaments, increased in the great families down
to the very close of the empire; and while the currency was constantly
declining, and prices in consequence falling in the provinces, the
colossal capitalists of Rome and Constantinople were daily absorbing
more of the precious metals in these beautiful but unproductive objects.
The quantity of gold and silver moulded into the form of vases, statues,
tripods, and personal ornaments, which was accumulated in Rome at the
time it was taken by the Goths, would exceed belief if not attested by
the unanimous testimony of all the contemporary writers. Great part of
it was thrown into the Tiber, where it still remains covered by the
alluvial deposits of fourteen centuries; the most precious of the spoils
were buried with Alaric in the bed of a stream in Calabria, where that
redoubtable conqueror was overtaken by the common fate of mortality. The
place where he was interred was kept a profound secret, and the slaves
who dug his grave in the bed of the river, of which the course had been
turned aside for the purpose, were put to death, and buried with him and
his treasures; and the river itself was immediately let into its old
channel, that its ceaseless flow might secure, as it since has done, the
grave of the mighty chief from disturbance, and enable him to present
himself loaded with his earthly spoils in the land of spirits.[66]
The concurring operation of these causes produced, in the three last
centuries of the Roman empire, a very great scarcity in the supply of
the precious metals for the purposes of the public currency, and
consequently a most distressing fall in prices, and diminution in the
remuneration of industry, accompanied by a proportional increase in the
weight of debt and taxes. And the progressive effect of these changes
appeared in the clearest manner, in the repeated changes which were made
by successive emperors in the value of the gold and silver coins which
passed current in the empire. Gold became progressively so scarce in
proportion to silver, that the proportion between the two, which at
first had been 1 to 10 in the time of Augustus, rose in time to 1 to
12-1/2, and was fixed by Constantine the Great at 1 to 14-2/5ths.[67] In
consequence of this rise in the value of gold--the precise counterpart
of what was experienced in Great Britain in the later years of the war,
when a _light_ guinea sold for 25s.--the quantity of gold in the
_aureus_, or chief gold Roman coin, was progressively diminished, till
it came to contain little more than _half_ its former weight of that
precious metal. The learned Greaves has shown, after diligent inquiry,
that while in the time of the Antonines the _aureus_ weighed 118, in the
time of Majorian, in the fifth century, it had come to weigh only 68
grains.[68] This is a clear indication, that 68 grains of gold were now
equal in value to what 118 grains had been three centuries before; for
Majorian, by a special decree, ordered all _aurei_ of whatever reign,
the Gallic _solidus_ alone excepted, to pass, not according to weight
but standard.[69] That is the most decisive proof to what a grievous
extent the currency had, from the operation of the causes which have
been mentioned, come to be contracted; for as gold constitutes, from its
superior value, at least nine-tenths of the circulating medium of every
civilized state, so great a rise in its value could only have been
occasioned by a very great contraction of the whole currency. We know in
what state the metallic currency of Great Britain was when the _light_
guinea was selling for twenty-five shillings.
In the latter days of the empire, when the invasions of the barbarians
began, and its provinces were liable to be pierced through and overrun
by columns of their predatory hordes, the universal and well-founded
terror produced a general _hoarding_ of the precious metals, which
entirely withdrew them from circulation, until they were forced from the
trembling inhabitants by threats of massacre or conflagration. The
effect of this, in contracting the currency, and causing the little that
remained to disappear altogether from the circulation, of course was
prodigious. It lowered to almost nothing the money-price of every
species of industry, and proportionally augmented the weight of public
and private debts--the subject of such loud and constant complaints from
ancient historians. Nor was this evil confined to the latest periods of
the empire of the West--the years which immediately preceded its fall.
From the time of Commodus, who succeeded Marcus Antoninus, the
incursions of the barbarians into the northern provinces of the empire
had been severely felt; and from the time of the separation of the
empires of the East and West, they were almost perpetual, and sometimes
extended far into its interior provinces. The effect of these alarms and
dangers, in producing a universal disposition to hoard, and consequently
rendering money every where scarce, prices cheap, and debts and taxes
oppressive, was very great, and may be regarded as one of the chief
causes of the excessive and crushing weight which the direct burdens of
the state acquired in the later periods of the empire.
The resource so well known, and so often had recourse to with the
happiest effects, in modern times, to supply the void produced by a
temporary or permanent drain of the precious metals, was unknown in
antiquity. _They had no paper currency._ Even bills of exchange were
unknown. They, as is well known, were a contrivance of the Jews, in the
middle ages, to transport their wealth in a commodious form, when
threatened with persecution, from one country to another. To what an
extent paper of these various kinds has come to supply the place of gold
and silver, may be judged of by the fact, that during the war, the paper
currency of Great Britain and Ireland rose to L60,000,000 sterling; and
that, at the present time, the private bills in circulation in it are
estimated at L132,000,000 sterling. But this admirable resource, by
which an accidental or temporary dearth of the precious metals is
supplied by a paper currency, circulating at par with it, and fully
supplying, as long as credit lasts, its place, was unknown in the
ancient world. Gold, silver, and copper were their sole circulating
mediums; and consequently, when they were progressively withdrawn, by
the causes which have been mentioned, from the currency, there was
nothing left to supply their place. Instantly, as if by the stroke of a
fell necromancer, disasters of every kind accumulated on the wretched
inhabitants. Credit was violently shaken; money disappeared; prices
fell to a ruinous degree; industry could obtain no remuneration; the
influence and ascendancy of realized capital became irresistible; and
the only efficient power left in the state was that of the emperor, who
wrenched his taxes out of the impoverished hands of his subjects, or of
the creditors and landlords, who, by legal process, exacted their debts
from their debtors, and drove them to desperation. This was exactly the
social state of the empire in its declining days. We can appreciate its
horrors, from having had a foretaste of them during the commercial
crises with which, during the last twenty-five years, this country has
been visited.
From what has now been said, it is evident that the two circumstances
which occasioned the fall of the Roman empire, were _the destruction of
its domestic agriculture, by the importation of grain from its distant
provinces, and the accumulation of debts and taxes, arising from the
contraction of the currency_. If these causes be attentively considered,
it will be found that they not only afford a perfect solution of its
fall, but explain how it happened at the period it did, and had not
occurred at an earlier period. They show what it was which, slowly but
steadily, wasting away the vitals of the empire, successively destroyed
its rural population and agricultural industry, and at length crushed
its property under the increasing load of debts and taxes. They explain
how it happened that the indirect taxes, which at first were sufficient,
with a moderate imposition of five per cent on inheritances, to support
the large military and naval establishments of Augustus, became
gradually unproductive, and were at length succeeded by direct taxes on
land, of severe, and in the end destructive amount. They show what every
page of contemporary history demonstrates, that it was neither the
superior military power of the barbarians, nor the diminished skill and
courage of the legions, which occasioned the overthrow of the mighty
fabric, but the _wasting away of its internal resources_--which was the
real cause of its decay. They tell us that it was not the timidity of
the legions, but _the inability of government to array them in
sufficient strength_, which rendered them unequal to the contest with an
enemy whom, during the vigour of the state, they had so often repelled.
They explain how it happened that Italy and Greece had become deserts in
their rural districts, before one of the barbarians had crossed either
the Alps or the Haemus and how Africa, Spain, and Egypt, alone of the
provinces, retained their prosperity, when rural industry was wellnigh
extinct in all the other parts of the empire. Lastly, they explain how
it happened, that while the rural districts to the north of the
Mediterranean were so generally relapsing into a state of desolation,
the great cities of Greece and Italy long retained their prosperity, and
the wealth of the capitalists and great proprietors who inhabited them,
was continually increasing, while all other classes were ground to the
earth under the weight of public or private burdens.
It must appear, at first sight, not a little extraordinary that the very
causes which thus evidently led to the destruction of Rome, viz., the
unlimited importation of foreign grain and contraction of the currency,
are those which have been most the object of the policy of the British
government, for the last quarter of a century, by every possible means
to promote in this country. They were imposed upon Rome by necessity.
The extension of the empire over Spain, Africa, and Egypt, as well as
the magnanimous policy of its government towards all its subjects,
rendered a free trade in grain with the provinces, and large
importations from the great corn countries, unavoidable. Public
misfortunes, the increasing luxury of the rich, that very great
importation of grain itself, the failure of the Spanish and Grecian
mines, and the entire want of any paper currency to supply the place of
the metals thus largely abstracted, necessarily and unavoidably forced
this calamitous contraction of the currency upon the Roman empire. But
the British policy has adopted the same principles, and done the same
things, when _no necessity_ or external pressure rendered it
unavoidable. A free trade in grain is to be introduced, not in favour of
distant provinces of the empire, but of its neighbours and its enemies.
The currency has been contracted, not by public calamities, or any
deficiency in the means of supplying the failure of the ordinary sources
of gold and silver, but by the fixed determination of government,
carried into execution by repeated acts of Parliament in 1819, 1826, and
1844, to abridge the paper circulation, and deprive the nation of the
benefit of the great discovery of modern times, by which the calamitous
effects of the diminution in the supply of the precious metals
throughout the world have been so materially prevented.
Such a result must appear under all circumstances strange, and would be
inexplicable, if we did not reflect, that the same impulse which was
communicated to the measures of government in Rome by the influence of
the capitalists and the clamorous inhabitants of great towns, is equally
felt in the same stage of society in modern times. The people in our
great cities do not call out, as in ancient days, for gratuitous
distributions of corn from Lybia or Egypt; but they clamour just as
loudly for free trade in grain with Poland and the Ukraine, which has
the effect of swamping the home-grower quite as completely. The great
capitalists do not make colossal fortunes by the plunder of subject
provinces, as in the days of the Roman proconsuls; but they never cease
to exert their influence to procure a contraction of the currency by the
measures of government, which answers the purpose of augmenting their
fortunes at the expense of the industrious classes just as well.
Political writers, social philosophers, practical statesmen, fall in
with the prevailing disposition of _the most influential classes_; they
deceive themselves into the belief that they are original, and
promulgating important truths, when they are merely yielding to the
pressure of the strongest, or at least the most noisy, class at the
moment in society. The Reform Bill gave _three-fifths_ of the British
representation to the members for boroughs. From that moment the
eventual adoption of legislative measures favourable to the interests of
capital, and agreeable to the wishes of the inhabitants of towns, how
destructive soever to those of the country, was as certain as the daily
distribution of Egyptian grain to the inhabitants of Rome, Antioch, and
Constantinople was, when the mob of these cities became, from their
formidable numbers, an object of dread to the Roman government.
The only answer which the partisans of free trade in grain have ever
attempted to these considerations is, that the ruin of the agriculture
in the central provinces of the Roman empire was owing, not to the
importation of foreign corn as a mercantile commodity, but to its
_distribution gratuitously_ to the poorer citizens of Rome,
Constantinople, and some of the larger cities in the empire. They
_admit_, in its fullest extent, the decay of domestic agriculture, and
consequent ruin of the state, but allege it was owing to this gratuitous
distribution, which was in fact a poor-law, and not to the free trade in
grain.[70] But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show
that this is an elusory distinction; and that it was the unrestricted
admission of foreign wheat by purchase, which in reality, coupled with
the contraction of the currency, destroyed the dominion of the legions.
1. In the first place, the number who received these gratuitous
distributions was, as already shown, _so small_, when compared to the
whole body of the grain-consuming population, that they could not
materially have affected the market for agricultural produce in Italy.
Not more than 150,000 persons received rations in Rome daily, and
perhaps as many in the other cities of Italy. What was this in a
peninsula containing at that period sixteen or eighteen millions of
souls, and with 2,300,000 in its capital alone?[71] It is evident that
the gratuitous distributions of grain, taking those at their greatest
extent, could not have embraced a fiftieth part of the Italian
population. What ruined the agriculturists, who used to feed the
remaining forty-nine fiftieths? The unlimited importation of cheap grain
from Spain, Egypt, Sicily, and Lybia, and nothing else.
2. In the next place, even if the gratuitous distributions of grain had
embraced twenty times the number which they did, nothing can be clearer
than that the effect _on agriculture_ is the same, whether cheap foreign
grain is imported by the private importer, or bought and distributed by
the government. If the home-grower _loses his market_, it is the same
thing to him whether he does so from the effects of private importation
or public distribution; whether his formidable competitor is the
merchant, who brings the Lybian grain to the Tiber; or the government,
which exacts it as a tribute from Sicily or Egypt. The difference is
very great to the _urban_ population, whether they receive their foreign
grain in return for their own labour, or get it doled out to them from
the government store as the price of keeping quiet. But to the _rural_
cultivator it is immaterial, whether destruction comes upon him in the
one way or the other. It is the _importation of foreign grain_ which
ruins him; and the effect is the same, whether the price paid for is the
gold of the capitalist, or the blood of the legions.