Agriculture was neglected; and the masters of the world, who had obtained every thing for which they contended, while they preserved their purity of manners, now became unable either to govern others, to protect themselves, or even to provide food. Sicily and Africa supplied the Roman people with bread, long before the empire had become feeble, and even at the very time when it is reckoned to have been in its greatest splendour in the Augustan age. {35} The cause of its decline was fixed beyond the power of human nature to counteract: it began by unnerving the human character, and therefore its progress was accelerated and became irresistible.
Of all the nations, into which luxury is introduced, none feels its effects
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{34} The detached facts related of the wealth of the governors of provinces, compared with the poverty of the state, are, if not incredible, at least, difficult to conceive. They are, however, too well attested to admit of a doubt, though the details are not sufficiently circumstantial to enable us to know exactly how they happened.
{35} In the time of Augustus, the people depended on the supplies from Sicily and Egypt, in so complete a manner, that, if those failed, there was no remedy; and, at one time, when there was only a sufficient quantity of grain for twenty-four hours, that emperor was determined to have put an end to his existence: but the supply arrived in time. Such is the terrible situation into which a people is thrown, when agriculture and industry are abandoned, and when the population becomes too great for the production of the country!! This, however, was a very recent change. Till some time after the conquest of Egypt, Greece, and Sicily, it could not have happened.
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so severely as one where it comes by conquest. A people of conquerors, who are wealthy, must, at all events, be under military authority, and that is never a desirable circumstance; depending also on revenues which come without the aid of industry, they must become doubly degraded.
With such a people, it would be fair to compare the Carthaginians before their fall; for, to say nothing more than that the principle of traffic and commerce is founded on morality and virtue, in comparison to that trade of pillage which robbed and ruined all nations; the physical situation of the Carthaginians was preferable to that of the Romans in the days of their decline. This is evident, from the noble struggle that the former made, and the contemptible manner in which the mistress of the world terminated her career.
Montesquieu bewails the fate of a monarch, who is oppressed by a party that prevails after his fall. His enemies are his historians; and this reflection is employed in mitigation of the crimes imputed to Tarquin; but, surely, if true, on that occasion, it is no less so with respect to Carthage. All the historians that give us the character of the two nations were Romans and of the victorious party; yet most of them are more equitable than the historians of modern times, for they had not seen their own country in its last state of degradation and misery. Those who now make the comparison have proper materials; and it is the business of the writers of history to free it from the errors into which cotemporary =sic= authors fall, whether from prejudice, or from want of knowing those events which happened after their days.