Note 252-5 — Chapter II

In this respect, however, there is a great difference between bondage and slavery. As early a writer as Polybius speaks of the depopulation of Greece. (Polyb., II, 55; XXXVII, 4.) He looks for the cause in this, that in every family, for luxury's sake, either no children whatever were wanted, or at most from one to two, that the latter might be left rich. (Exc. Vat., 448.) Very remarkable, Seneca, Cons. ad. Marc, 19. Further, Cicero, ad. Div., II, 5. Strabo, VII, 501; VIII, 595; IX, 617, 629. Pausan., VII, 18; VIII, 7; X, 4; Dio Chr., VII, 34, 121; XXXIII, 25. Plutarch claimed that Hellas could, in his time, number scarcely 3,000 hoplites, while in the time of Themistocles, Megalis alone had put as many in the field. (De Defectu Orac., S.) Antium and Tarentum similarly declined under Nero. (Tacit., Ann., XIV, 27.) The depopulation even of the capital, which began under Tiberius, is apparent from Tacit., Ann., IV, 4, 27. National beauty also declined with the nation's populousness. Æschines saw a great many beautiful youths in Athens (adv. Timarch., 31); Cotta, only very few (Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, I, 28); Dio Chrysostomus, almost none at all (Orat., XXI). On the necessary lowering of the military standard of measure, see Theod., Cod., VII, 13, 3, Verget, de Re milit., I, 5. The depopulation of the later orbis terrarum is confirmed by the easiness of the new division of land with the German conquerors. Compare Gaupp, Die Germanischen Niederlassungen und Landtheilungen (1845), passim.