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We come to the examination of Roman history, which fully confirms our doctrine. The Roman and the eastern or Byzantine empires, cover twenty-two centuries; and this iron commonwealth, when Augustus assumed the royal purple, ruled one hundred and twenty millions of people, sixty millions of whom were slaves, captured by force or fraud in war—and a large portion of the residue were composed of conquered and tributary nations. The extent of the Roman empire was about three thousand miles by two thousand, and included Britain, Gaul, Spain, Germany, Macedonia, Greece, Egypt, Numidia, Carthage, Sicily and various other countries. In solidity, extent, and duration, the Roman dominion surpassed all ancient states and empires. The prophet might well have proclaimed an iron rule, when the image of that power passed before the eye of the holy man. From a small city, the Romans extended their authority, by aggression and violence, over the Italian nations, and in a few centuries, all Italy became subject to Rome. As their territory was extended by conquest, one portion of the lands of the enemy were seized for public use, and another portion was assigned by law to, and divided among the Plebeians. The Patricians, forming a hereditary Senate, first of one hundred, and at a later period, of three hundred, held after the ex

pulsion of the kings most of the powers of the State

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The Consuls, though nominally elected by the people, were for a long period Patricians; and subsequently senatorial influence controlled these elections. The Assemblies of the people, as well as the Senate, possessed and exercised legislative power, after they had by violence established the office of Tribune of the people. But in every age of the commonwealth, Patrician influence or Patrician swords directed the democracy of Rome. This influence was less felt in the first ages of the Republic, when the Romans were owners in fee simple of lands, and independent proprietors. As her conquests extended, she assumed to own the persons and property of the defeated; and the Patricians by purchase of slaves, and encroachment on the public domains, soon became large and rich proprietors, depending for support and power only on their slaves, plantations, and hereditary honors. Slavery thus destroyed the mutual, natural, and necessary dependence of the Patrician and Plebeian-the morals of the rich, and the industry of the lower orders. With loss of industry, and with devotion to war, the common people lost their property, which, by purchase passed to the great Patrician slaveholders. The wars not only ruined the common free Romans,

by transferring to slaves the industrial pursuits of Italy, and to their masters, the rewards of all branches of industry; but they enriched by robbery and bribery the Senators and Roman generals. In the days of the Gracchi, those true friends of the Roman people, an attempt was made to take from the rich, a part of the public domain, which they held contrary to the Licinian law, and to reestablish the impoverished Italians as owners of the soil. The Patricians put down these patriotic and noble efforts of the Gracchi, by killing them and more than three thousand of the people. The Roman sword, which had prostrated and robbed mighty nations, cut down forever the power of the Plebeians, and consigned them to indolence, poverty, corruption, and misery. Sylla of the aristocracy, and Marius of the democracy, continued this bloody civil war, and after them came Pompey and Cæsar, with their intestine war, and then the Triumvirate, with their terrrible contests, which changed the Roman oligarchy into an imperial tyranny. While Roman robbers were fighting for the spoils of pillaged nations, they naturally disregarded all right of liberty and property in Italy. Sylla and those who succeeded him, took Roman life and property at will, and made the Romans feel the same evils they had inflicted on prostrate nations. Slavery brought upon

them its inevitable attendant, servile wars. Those of Eunus and Spartacus desolated Italy and Sicily, and presented the singular spectacle of great and successful battles, fought by the oppressed against their oppressors. The Consuls were defeated, and Rome was in imminent peril. A million of lives are said to have been lost in these contests. Thus warlike conquests, with slavery and ill-gotten wealth, by their internal effect, destroyed the manly energy and virtue of the Romans-their habits of industry, their liberty, and their morals.

At the Christian era, about two thousand rich proprietors owned all Italy, and extensive possessions in the Provinces; and the Plebeians were a miserable populace, fed and amused by gladiatorial shows, at the expense of State. The corruption and depravity of all orders were complete. During his Dictatorship, Julius Cæsar wisely issued an ordinance, commanding one third of the labor of Italy to be done by freemen, but the swords of the conspirators Brutus, Cassius, and their fellow assassins, defeated this last effort to restore the industry and prosperity of Italy. So great was the corruption and debasement of the Romans, that they passed easily and naturally under the yoke of the Cæsars and their imperial succesFrom this period, the Roman empire, and the Byzantine, which sprung from it, exhibited

sors.

all the wickedness, cruelty, and degradation of the dying commonwealth-thus illustrating the truth, that the vices of nations are necessarily transmitted by example and education to posterity, even to remote generations. In the fifth century of our era, Alaric, with an army of Goths, and forty thousand Roman slaves, entered and sacked Rome, plundering, pillaging, and enslaving the people. He followed the Roman precedents at Carthage, Syracuse, Numantia, and Corinth, but more humanely, and with a touch of mercy.

Afterwards, Genseric, with his Vandals, having taken Carthage, rebuilt by Augustus as a Roman colony, came to Rome and sacked her, carrying back to Carthage the Roman queen and enslaved Romans, with a rich booty, part of the world's plunder, to which the African city had of old contributed. Attila, the Hun, also scourged Italy with his Scythian hosts. These three avengers of insulted humanity, and the slaves of Alaric's army, visited upon the Italians the evils of slavery and war, and treated Rome as she had done conquered nations. The Roman empire of the west perished by the sword in the fifth century, having been already consumed by the vices flowing from war and servitude. The Byzantine empire prolonged a sickly and corrupt existence until the fifteenth century, when Constantinople surrendered

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