Note 11 — LECTURE II. The Roman and the Teuton. Comparison of the Political and Social Condition of the Empire and its German Neighbours.

There is an interesting passage in the Greek historian Agathias (who wrote about 570) which illustrates, if it does not precisely confirm the view here taken. He says (Hist. v. 13): ‘The armies of the Romans no longer remained of the size at which they had been originally fixed by the earlier Emperors, but had dwindled down to a tiny remnant, by no means adequate to the size of the State. For whereas they ought to amount in the whole to 645,000 warlike men, they have been now reduced to little more than 150,000.’ As Agathias wrote under Justinian, after the greater part of the West had been lost to the Empire, he probably reduced his figures of ‘paper-strength’ and ‘effectives’ in proportion to the diminution of the Empire; and if so, he would probably have accepted for the year 400, when the territories of the sons of Theodosius were still intact, a result like that mentioned in the text.