Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/289

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 265 hopes of plunder and conquest. The innumerable CHAP, swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the great ' storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the vanquished, and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from facts thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and has been supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that, in the age of Caesar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the north were far more numerous than they are in our days p. A more serious enquiry into the causes of population, seems to have convinced modern philosophers of the falsehood, and indeed the impossibility of the suppo- sition. To the names of Mariana and of MachiaveH, we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and Hume ^ A warlike nation like the Germans, without either German cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation ^'^^^^o™- for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom; since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism, "Among the Suiones," says Tacitus, "riches 'are held in honour. They are therefore subject to an absolute monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people with the free use of arms, as is practised in the rest of Ger- many, commits them to the safe custody, not of a citi- zen, or even of a freedman, but of a slave. The neigh- bours of the Suiones, the Sitones, are sunk even below servitude; they obey a woman ^" In the mention of these exceptions, the great historian sufficiently ac- knowledges the general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive by what means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote corner of the north, and extinguish the generous flame that blazed with such fierceness on the frontier of the Ro- V Sir William Temple and Montesquieu have indulged on this subject the usual liveliness of their fancy. 1 Machiavel, Hist, di Firenze, 1. i. ; Mariana, Hist. Hispan. 1. v. c. 1. ' Robertson's Charles V. ; Hume's Political Essays. « Tacit. Germ. 44, 45. Frenshemius (who dedicated his supplement to Livy to Christina of Sweden) thinks proper to be very angry with the Ro- man who expressed so very little reverence for northern queens.