Note 33 — Chapter XXXVI · THE FIVE GOOD EMPERORS: NERVA TO MARCUS AURELIUS (96-180 A.D.) (continued 2)
Reading edition
[This famous estimate of Gibbon’s has been seriously questioned. About half of the inhabitants of the empire were slaves, and it is scarcely in doubt that a great majority of the freemen were materially, intellectually, and morally inferior to the average civilised man of to-day. It must be recalled, however, that the condition of the masses has greatly improved since the time of Gibbon.]