Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/355

 ' OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 331 nity. The situation of Sicily preserved it from the CHAP, barbarians ; nor could the disarmed province have sup- ^' ported an usurper. The sufferings of that once flou- rishing and still fertile island were inflicted by baser hands. A licentious crowd of slaves and peasants reigned for a while over the plundered country, and renewed the memory of the servile wars of more an- cient times*'. Devastations, of which the husbandman was either the victim or the accomplice, must have ruined the agriculture of Sicily; and as the principal estates were the property of the opulent senators of Rome, who often enclosed within a farm the territory of an old republic, it is not improbable that this pri- vate injury might affect the capital more deeply than all the conquests of the Goths or the Persians. II. The foundation of Alexandria was a noble de- Tumults of sign, at once conceived and executed by the son of Philip. The beautiful and regular form of that great city, second only to Rome itself, comprehended a cir- cumference of fifteen miles*; it was peopled by three hundred thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an equal number of slaves'". The lucrative trade of Arabia and India flowed through the port of Alex- andria to the capital and provinces of the empire. Idleness was unknown. Some were employed in blow- ing of glass, others in weaving of linen, others again manufacturing the papyrus. Either sex, and every age, was engaged in the pursuits of industry; nor did even the blind or the lame want occupations suited to their condition ^ But the people of Alex- andria, a various mixture of nations, united the va- nity and inconstancy of the Greeks with the super- stition and obstinacy of the Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public baths, or even a religious dis- •> The Augustan History, p. 177, calls it servile belbtm. See Diodor. SicuK 1. xxxiv. * PHn. Hist. Natur. v. 10. ^ Diodor. Sicul. 1. xvii. p. 590. edit. Wesseling. ' See a very curious letter of Hadrian, in the Augustan History, p. 245.