Part 11 (1/2)

[Footnote 212: Cp. Dureau de la Malle, _econ. polit. des Romains_, ii, 24 _sq._]

[Footnote 213: _Hist. Nat._ iii, ix, 16.]

[Footnote 214: _Id. ib._ 6.]

[Footnote 215: Livy, vii, 38.]

[Footnote 216: Mommsen, i, 36. Mommsen does not deny the deterioration.]

[Footnote 217: Sueton. _Julius_, c. 20.]

[Footnote 218: _E.g._ Jacob, _Hist. Inq. into the Prod. and Consump. of the Precious Metals_, 1831, i, 221 _sq._]

[Footnote 219: Cp. Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ xii, 18 (41).]

[Footnote 220: Cp. Del Mar, _History of the Precious Metals_, 1880, pref. p. vi; _Money and Civilisation_, 1886, introd. p. ix.]

[Footnote 221: Cp. Polybius, cited by Strabo, iii, ii, -- 10; Jacob, _Hist. of the Precious Metals_, i, 176.]

[Footnote 222: Cp. Dureau de la Malle, _Econ. pol. des Romains_, ii, 441; Merivale, _History_, iv, 44.]

[Footnote 223: Jacob, as cited, i, 179.]

[Footnote 224: Gibbon, ch. xvii, Bohn ed. ii, 237. Cp. Prof. Bury's note in his ed., and Dureau de la Malle, _Econ. polit. des Romains_, i, 301 _sq._]

[Footnote 225: On this form of oppression cp. Guizot, _Essais sur l'histoire de France_, i; his note on Gibbon, Bohn ed. ii, 234; Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_, B. iii, ch.

2; and Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_, pp. 188, 189.]

[Footnote 226: Spalding, _Italy_, i, 398, following Symmachus.]

[Footnote 227: Gibbon, ch. xvii, Bohn ed. ii, 237, citing _Cod.

Theodos._ xi, 28, 2. Cp. Dill, pp. 259-60.]

[Footnote 228: Cp. Dill, as cited, p. 260.]

[Footnote 229: Anastasius in his reign of twenty-seven years had saved an enormous treasure, whence it is arguable that Justinian's straits were due to bad management. But while he enlarged the expenditure, chiefly for military purposes, he also enlarged the revenue by very oppressive means, and practised some new economies. The fact remains that where Anastasius could h.o.a.rd with a non-imperialist policy, Justinian, re-expanding the Empire, could not. See Gibbon, ch. 40, _pa.s.sim_. Non-military expenditure could not account for the final deficit in Justinian's treasury. Even the great church of San Sofia does not seem to have cost above 1,000,000. _Id._ Bohn ed. iv, 335.]

[Footnote 230: ”Here [in Egypt], as in Palestine, as in Syria, as in the country about the Euphrates, the efforts of the Persians could never have been attended with such immediate and easy success but for the disaffection of large ma.s.ses of the population. This disaffection rested chiefly on the religious differences” (Bury, _History of the Later Roman Empire_, ii, 214). Compare Gibbon, ch. 47, Bohn ed. v, 275; and Mosheim, _Eccles. Hist._, 5 Cent, pt. ii, ch. ii, ---- 2, 4, 5 (Reid's ed. pp.

179-81). As to the welcoming of the Saracens in Egypt by the Monophysites, see Gibbon, ch. 51, Bohn ed. vi, 59-60. Cp. Sharpe, _Hist.

of Egypt_, 6th ed. ii, 371; Milman, _Latin Christianity_, 4th ed. ii, 213; Finlay, i, 370-71.]

[Footnote 231: _E.g._ the _tome_ of St. Leo, the Laws of Marcian, the _Henoticon of Zeno_, and the laws of Justinian; and the _ecthesis_ and _typus_ of Heraclius and Constans II--all retailed by Gibbon, ch. 47.]

[Footnote 232: Finlay immediately afterwards (p. 139) declares of the choice of Byzantium by Constantine as his capital that ”its first effect was to preserve the unity of the Eastern Empire.” The admission is repeated on p. 140, where the whole credit of the stand made by the East is given to the administration. Cp. also the explanations as to Italy on p. 235, and as to Byzantium on p. 184. The theory of p. 138 is utterly unsupported, and on p. 289 it is practically repudiated once for all.

Cp. finally, pp. 217, 276, 298, 309, 328, 329, 347, 348, and pp. 361 and 371. On p. 276 we have the explicit admission that the hostility to the Roman Government throughout the East [in the sixth century] was everywhere connected with an opposition to the Greek ”clergy.”]

Chapter II

GREEK ECONOMIC EVOLUTION

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