ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN THE THIRD AND FOURTH
CENTURIES
THE "FALL" OF ROME
Rome, it has been said, was not built in a day; the rule
of Rome was not destroyed in a day. When we speak of the "fall" of
Rome, we have in mind, not a violent catastrophe which suddenly plunged the
civilized world into ruin, but rather the slow and gradual decay of ancient
society throughout the basin of the Mediterranean. This decay set in long
before the Germans and the Persians became a serious danger to the empire. It
would have continued, doubtless, had there been no Germans and Persians to
break through the frontiers and destroy. The truth seems to be that, during the
third and fourth centuries of our era, classical civilization, like an overtrained
athlete, had grown "stale."
DEPOPULATION DUE TO THE SLAVE SYSTEM
It is not possible to set forth all the forces which
century after century had been sapping the strength of the state. The most
obvious element of weakness was the want of men to fill the armies and to
cultivate the fields. The slave system seems to have been partly responsible
for this depopulation. The peasant on his little homestead could not compete
with the wealthy noble whose vast estates were worked by gangs of slaves. The
artisan could not support himself and his family on the pittance that kept his
slave competitor alive. Peasants and artisans gradually drifted into the
cities, where the public distributions of grain, wine, and oil assured them of
a living with little expense and almost without exertion. In both Italy and the
provinces there was a serious decline in the number of free farmers and free
workingmen.
