[208] Gibbon, ch. xvii; Bohn ed. ii, 194, and notes.
[209] Symmachus speaks of a famine about the time of the confiscation of the temple revenues. Ep. x, 54.
[210] Valentinian had resumed those temple revenues which had been restored by Julian, but went no further, though he vetoed the acquisition of legacies by his own church. That Gratian's step was rather financial than fanatical is proved by his having at the same time endowed the pagan rhetors and grammarians as a small religious quid pro quo. Beugnot, Hist. de la destr. du paganisme en occident, 1835, i, 478.
[211] There was a fresh relapse after Theodoric, in the ruinous wars between Justinian and the Goths and Franks. Revival began in the north under the Lombards, and was stimulated in the south after the revolt of Gregory II against Leo the Iconoclast, which made an end of the payment of Italian tribute to Byzantium. (Gibbon, Bohn ed. v, 127, 372, 377.)
[212] Cp. Dureau de la Malle, Écon. polit. des Romains, ii, 24 sq.
[213] Hist. Nat. iii, ix, 16.
[214] Id. ib. 6.
[215] Livy, vii, 38.
[216] Mommsen, i, 36. Mommsen does not deny the deterioration.
[217] Sueton. Julius, c. 20.