Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/309

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 289 hundred and fifty thousand citizens of an age to bear aiTns.^*' Fifty thousand had already died in the defence of their country ; and the twenty-three legions which were employed in the different camps of Italy, Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, and Spain, required about one hundred thousand men. But there still remained an equal number in Rome, and the adjacent terri- tory, who were animated by the same intrepid courage ; and every citizen was trained, from his earliest youth, in the discipline and exercises of a soldier, Hannibal was astonished by the constancy of the senate, who, without raising the siege of Capua or i-ecalling their scattered forces, expected his approach. He encamped on the banks of the Anio, at the distance of three miles from the city ; and he was soon in- formed that the ground on which he had pitched his tent was sold for an adequate price at a public auction and that a body of troops was dismissed by an opposite road, to reinforce the legions of Spain. ^^ He led his Africans to the gates of Rome, where he found three armies in order of battle, prepared to receive him ; but Hannibal dreaded the event of a combat from which he could not hope to escape, unless he destroyed the last of his enemies ; and his speedy retreat confessed the invincible courage of the Romans. From the time of the Punic war the uninterrupted succession Genealogy of senators had preserved the name and image of the I'epublic ; senators and the degenerate subjects of Honorius ambitiously derived their descent from the heroes who had repulsed the arms of Hannibal and subdued the nations of the earth. The temporal honours which the devout Paula i- inherited and despised are 10 In the three census, which were made of the Roman people, about the time of the second Punic war, the numbers stand as follows (see Livy, Epitom. 1. xx. Hist. 1. xxvii. 36, xxix. 37), 270, 213, 137, 108, 214,000. The fall of the second, and the rise of the third, appears so enormous that several critics, notwithstand- ing the unanimity of the Mss. , have suspected some corruption of the text of Livy. (See Drakenborch ad xxvii. 36, and Beaufort, R^publique Romaine, torn. i. p. 325.) They did not consider that the second census was taken onl)' at Rome, and that the numbers were diminished, not only by the death, but likewise by the absence, of many soldiers. In the third census, Livy expressly affirms that the legions were mustered by the care of particular commissaries. From the numbers on the list we must always deduc t one twelfth above three score and incapable of bearing arms. See Population dvi la France, p. 72. 11 Livy considers these two incidents as the effects only of chance and courage. 1 suspect that they were both managed by the admirable policy of the senate. 12 See Jerom, tom. i. p. 169, 170, ad Eustochium [cp. 108, ed. Migne, i. p. 878] ; he bestows on Paula the splendid titles of Gracchorum stirps, soboles Scip- ionum, Pauli hasres, cujus vocabulum trahit, Martiae Papyriag Matris Africani vera et germana propago. This particular description supposes a more solid title than VOL. III. 19