We learn from Strabo that the Romans, from their regard to the Greeks, maintained, to his time, most of the privileges and liberties of that celebrated nation, and Nero afterwards rather increased them. How therefore can we imagine that the Roman yoke was so burdensome over that part of the world? The oppression of the proconsuls was restrained, and the magistracies in Greece being all bestowed in the several cities by the free votes of the people, there was no great necessity for the competitors to attend the emperor’s court. If great numbers went to seek their fortunes in Rome, and advance themselves by learning or eloquence, the commodities of their native country, many of them would return with the fortunes which they had acquired, and thereby enrich the Grecian commonwealths.
But Plutarch says that the general depopulation had been more sensibly felt in Greece than in any other country. How is this reconcilable to its superior privileges and advantages?
Besides, this passage by proving too much really proves nothing. Only three thousand men able to bear arms in all Greece! Who can admit so strange a proposition, especially if we consider the great number of Greek cities whose names still remain in history, and which are mentioned by writers long after the age of Plutarch? There are there surely ten times more people at present, when there scarce remains a city in all the bounds of ancient Greece. That country is still tolerably cultivated, and furnishes a sure supply of corn in case of any scarcity in Spain, Italy, or the South of France.
We may observe that the ancient frugality of the Greeks, and their equality of property, still subsisted during the age of Plutarch, as appears from Lucian. Nor is there any {p173} ground to imagine that that country was possessed by a few masters and a great number of slaves.
It is probable, indeed, that military discipline, being entirely useless, was extremely neglected in Greece after the establishment of the Roman Empire; and if these commonwealths, formerly so warlike and ambitious, maintained each of them a small city-guard to prevent mobbish disorders, it is all they had occasion for; and these, perhaps, did not amount to three thousand men throughout all Greece. I own that if Plutarch had this fact in his eye, he is here guilty of a very gross paralogism, and assigns causes nowise proportioned to the effects. But is it so great a prodigy that an author should fall into a mistake of this nature?[101] {p174}
But whatever force may remain in this passage of Plutarch, we shall endeavour to counterbalance it by as remarkable a passage in Diodorus Siculus, where the historian, after mentioning Ninus’s army of 1,700,000 foot and 200,000 horse, endeavours to support the credibility of this account by some posterior facts; and adds that we must not form a notion of the ancient populousness of mankind from the present emptiness and depopulation which is spread over the world. Thus an author, who lived at that very period of antiquity which is represented as most populous,[102] complains of the desolation which then prevailed, gives the preference to former times, and has recourse to ancient fables as a foundation for his opinion. The humour of blaming the present and admiring the past is strongly rooted in human nature, and has an influence even on persons endued with the most profound judgment and most extensive learning.
NOTES, OF THE POPULOUSNESS OF ANCIENT NATIONS.
[39] An ingenious writer has honoured this discourse with an answer full of politeness, erudition, and good sense. So learned a refutation would have made the author suspect that his reasonings were entirely overthrown, had he not used the precaution from the beginning to keep himself on the sceptical side; and having taken this advantage of the ground, he was enabled, though with much inferior forces, to preserve himself from a total defeat. That reverend gentleman will always find, where his antagonist is so entrenched, that it will be difficult to enforce him. Varro, in such a situation, could defend himself against Hannibal, Pharnaces against Cæsar. The author, however, very willingly acknowledges that his antagonist has detected many mistakes both in his authorities and reasonings; and it was owing entirely to that gentleman’s indulgence that many more errors were not remarked. In this edition advantage has been taken of his learned animadversions, and the essay has been rendered less imperfect than formerly.
[40] Columella says (lib. 3, cap. 8) that in Egypt and Africa the bearing of twins was frequent and even customary; gemini partus familiares, ac pæne solennes sunt. If this was true, there is a physical difference both in countries and ages, for travellers make no such remarks of these countries at present; on the contrary, we are apt to suppose the northern nations more fertile. As those two countries were provinces of the Roman Empire, it is difficult, though not altogether absurd, to suppose that such a man as Columella might be mistaken with regard to them.
[41] This too is a good reason why the smallpox does not depopulate countries so much as may at first sight be imagined. Where there is room for more people they will always arise, even without the assistance of naturalisation bills. It is remarked by Don Geronimo de Ustariz that the provinces of Spain which send most people to the Indies are most populous, which proceeds from their superior riches.