But there are plenty of other phenomena wholly or partially
inexplicable. It is easy to see why Rome trended downward when great
slave-tilled farms spread over what had once been a country-side of
peasant proprietors, when greed and luxury and sensuality ate like
acids into the fibre of the upper classes, while the mass of the
citizens grew to depend not upon their own exertions, but upon the
State, for their pleasures and their very livelihood. But this does
not explain why the forward movement stopped at different times, so
far as different matters were concerned; at one time as regards
literature, at another time as regards architecture, at another time
as regards city-building. There is nothing mysterious about Rome's
dissolution at the time of the barbarian invasions; apart from the
impoverishment and depopulation of the Empire, its fall would be quite
sufficiently explained by the mere fact that the average citizen had
lost the fighting edge--an essential even under a despotism, and
therefore far more essential in free, self-governing communities, such
as those of the English-speaking peoples of to-day. The mystery is
rather that out of the chaos and corruption of Roman society during
the last days of the oligarchic republic, there should have sprung an
Empire able to hold things with reasonable steadiness for three or
four centuries.
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