Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/141

Rh an alien placed on the Grecian throne to suit the convenience of the outside powers, which to the ancient Greeks were merely factions of barbarians. In the late war some poet, addressing the spirit of ancient Greece, appealed to her

 Of all thy thousands grant us three To make a new Thermopylæ."

But there were not even three—not even one—'to make another Marathon,' and the Turkish troops swept over the historic country with no other hindrance than the effortless deprecation of Christendom.

XXX. Why did Rome fall? It was not because untrained hordes were stronger than disciplined legions. It was not that she grew proud, luxurious, corrupt, and thereby gained a legacy of physical weakness. We read of her wealth, her extravagance, her indolence and vice, but all this caused only the downfall of the enervated, the vicious and the indolent. The Roman legions did not riot in wealth. The Roman generals were not all entangled in the wiles of Cleopatra.

XXXI. 'The Roman Empire,' says Seeley, 'perished for want of men.' You will find this fact on the pages of every history, though few have pointed out war as the final and necessary cause of the Roman downfall. In his recent noble history of the 'Downfall of the Ancient World' ('Der Untergang der Antiken Welt,' 1897), Prof. Otto Seeck, of Greifeswald, makes this fact very apparent. The cause of the fall of Rome is found in the 'Extinction of the Best' ('Die Ausrottung der Besten'), and all that remains to the historian is to give the details of this extermination. He says 'In Greece a wealth of spiritual power went down in the suicidal wars.' In Rome "Marius and Cinna slew the aristocrats by hundreds and thousands. Sulla destroyed no less thoroughly the democrats, and whatever of noble blood survived fell as an offering to the proscription of the triumvirate." "The Romans had less of spontaneous power to lose than the Greeks, and so desolation came to them all the sooner. He who was bold enough to rise politically was almost without exception thrown to the ground. Only cowards remained, and from their brood came forward the new generations. Cowardice showed itself in lack of originality and slavish following of masters and traditions." Had the Romans been still alive, the Romans of the old republic, neither inside nor outside forces could have worked the fall of Rome. But the true Romans passed away early. Even Cæsar notes the 'dire scarcity of men.' "δεινήυ ὄλιγανθροπίανδεινὴν ὀλιγανθρωπίαν [sic].") Still there were always men in plenty, such as they were. Of this there is abundant testimony. Slaves and camp followers were always in evidence. It was the men of strength and