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"for that purpose; but let them not, while they feed "their horses, reduce mankind to the necessity of "perishing by famine. Let them not prefer a dreary "solitude to the rights of humanity. The affections "and friendship of a people wishful to live in friendship with them are preferable to a wide waste of "barren lands." He mentions that the country had frequently been successively vacated and repossessed; and adds, "The firmament over our heads is "the mansion of the gods: the earth was given to "man; and what remains unoccupied is common to "all." At these words, adds the historian, he looked up to the sun, and appealing to the whole planetary system, asked, with a spirit of enthusiasm, as if the heavenly bodies were actually present, whether an uncultivated desert, the desolation of nature, gave a prospect fit for them to survey? Would they not rather let loose the ocean, to overwhelm in a sudden deluge a race of men, who made it their trade to carry devastation through the nations, and make the world a wilderness? Avitus answered, in a strain of insolent injustice: The law of the strongest must prevail ; the gods had so ordered it. The Romans were sovereign, and would admit no other judges. To Boiocalus, however, in recollection of what he had formerly done and suffered in their behalf, they privately offered lands. The noble-hearted German rejected the offer as the price of treachery with disdain. "The earth," he said, " may not afford a spot where we may dwell "in peace; a place where we may die, we can never "want." They parted under the influence of this feeling, and neglecting nothing which prudence could dictate, their heroic chieftain attempted to rouse several of the surrounding nations to an alliance with them; in which he partly succeeded but the fortune

of the Romans prevailed, and their allies renounced them. In the cause of others, none, it is said, were willing to encounter certain danger. Driven, therefore, from these unoccupied wastes, the Ansibarians, in their distress, were abandoned by all. They retreated to the Usipians and Tubantes; being there rejected, they sought refuge with the Cattians, and afterwards with the Cheruscans. At length, worn out by long and painful marches, in most places repulsed as enemies, and wanting every thing in a foreign land, the whole nation perished. The Romans destroyed them; the young, and such as were able to carry arms, were put to the sword; the rest were sold to slavery1.

(21) This affecting history affords us then, on a minute scale, which Mr. Malthus prefers, a real struggle for room and food. It was a struggle against "human institutions," which this noble-hearted people did not find to be so " light and superficial" in their inflictions as our anti-populationists argue; for they interdicted to them the cultivation of the desert earth, and unhesitatingly doomed them to universal destruction. To attribute sufferings like these to the evil effects of the principle of population, to the natural "tendencies" so much talked of, is an equal insult upon humanity, nature, and truth. Nevertheless, there has never been a martial massacre upon earth that this wretched principle could not justify as clearly as that of Boiocalus.

(22) Perhaps even the warmest assertors of this direct check will deem it superfluous for me to disprove that the wars of Rome in Africa or the east, or in our unoffending and distant island in the west, were clearly resolvable into the struggle in question.

Tacitus, Ann., lib, xiii., c. 56.

I shall, therefore, pass on to a subsequent period in the history of that mighty empire, postponing the few desultory and concluding observations, which I shall make in relation to this subject, to the ensuing chapter.

233

CHAPTER XIII.

OF THE WARS AND IRRUPTIONS ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE; THEIR CAUSES IRRECONCILEABLE WITH THE THEORY

OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY.

(1) To resume, as shortly as possible, the important subject of the preceding chapter: it will require no extensive research to shew that the wars of Rome, whether those of aggression on distant countries, or those by which she fell a just victim to the vengeance of a world over which she had long tyrannized, cannot by any possibility be construed into contests for that space and sustenance which are necessary to human beings.

(2) Need the conduct of that empire towards its enemies or even dependents be particularized? Instrument, as it was, in the hand of Providence for working the future good of mankind, it was still more its scourge. The reasons which the Romans alleged for their continued contests include every possible variety of motive save that of justice; while the savage ferocity with which they waged them, fully justified their origin, and comported with what might be expected from a people whose favourite amusement, even in peace, was the witnessing of the murderous fights in their theatres, in which the vanquished, if not killed upon the spot, were often doomed to a violent death; so that, "perhaps, thousands of victims were thus annually slaughtered'." War with them, therefore, even upon the most distant and unoffending, was

1 1 Gibbon, Decline, &c., vol. v., p. 206.

frequently the immolation of all that fell into their hands; though sometimes the women and children were reserved for a still more severe fate. In the government of the vanquished countries, haughty and tyrannical to the last degree, nothing, indeed, could exceed the corruption that prevailed at home, except the extortion and cruelty which reigned in their provinces', where means were resorted to by their governors for the purpose of amassing enormous wealth, involving all but impossibilities, and, indeed, sometimes those, when their wretched tributaries had to sell even themselves to make up the exactions demanded, or abide the consequence-death. Hence many of those who were privileged, by being enrolled amongst the Roman provinces, hailed their conquest, by those called barbarians, as an auspicious change'. Their slaves (and these constituted a great mass of the people) had no political rights whatsoever; but were subjected unredressed to unheard of wrongs and outrages; and they even confounded tradesmen with slaves; freedmen, as they were called, awakened their jealousy and hate, and enjoyed very limited and insecure privileges. Even their allies, the very instruments of their power and greatness, were attacked whenever they stood in the way of their ambition, or, as was more commonly the case, excited their covetousness. Often, indeed, a whole population was destroyed to gratify their caprice, or to replenish their coffers; and their liberal Catos were the willing instruments of deeds, from the bare recital of which, humanity recoils. Let those who may think this picture of

1 Montesquieu, Rise and Fall, &c. ch. viii.

3 Diodorus Siculus. Montesquieu, Rise and Fall, &c., ch. viii. Montesquieu, Rise and Fall, &ly

Gib- c. vi.

Montesquieu, Ruin and Decay of the Roman Empire, ch. ii., p. 13. bon, Decline, &c., vol. v. p. 350,