Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/103

 DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 67 very hard for the curiales to squeeze the required amount out of their fellow- townsmen and the landholders of the im- mediate neighborhood. In this case they had to make up any deficit from their own pockets. This tended to ruin a class of men who had once been the richest in town, and they often tried to escape from their office, but instead the em- peror made it hereditary. This decline in prosperity of the cities was due in part to the civil wars and barbarian inroads of the third century, but also to the fact that the prosperity of the Decline of ancient city was founded largely upon slave decreSeTn labor, and that with the cessation of Roman population conquests it became increasingly difficult to obtain slaves. Moreover, many slaves were given their freedom as the Empire progressed. This should have produced a large working middle class, one would think, which would have revived the languishing industry and commerce of the Empire. But unfortunately the population of the Empire as a whole, as in the cases of Greece and Italy earlier, began to decrease seriously. A great plague which swept over the Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius reduced the population terribly for the time being, and afterwards the ancient stocks apparently did not possess enough vitality to repair its ravages. It was perhaps this simple lack of men and life and energy that did most to terminate the Roman Empire and classical civilization. Unless it could be stopped, it meant, of course, that many towns would become depopu- lated and that municipal life would give way to a scattered agricultural society. This was what finally happened after the barbarian invasions. A clear indication of the depopulation of the Empire is seen in the repeated settlement, from the reign of Marcus Aurelius on, of large numbers of barbarians Settlement of within the Roman frontiers. These barbarians wlthinthe were given waste lands or depopulated areas to Empire till and formed a half-subject peasant class. Naturally they were not admitted to the towns in the first instance, for they knew nothing of business and industry and were unfitted to