dry-rot that sapped her vitals from within. As a mere matter of numbers, the actual citizens of Rome or even of the semi-Roman districts close around her were too few to continue fighting over all the vast empire they controlled. The sturdy peasant population of Italy slowly disappeared. The actual inhabitants of the capital came to consist of a few thousand vastly wealthy families, who held all the power, a few thousand more of poorer citizens dependent on the rich, and then a vast swarm of slaves and foreigners, feeders on the crumbs of the Roman table.

In the battles against Carthage, the mass of Rome's armies had consisted of her own citizens or of allies closely united to them in blood and fortune. Her later victories were won by hired troops, men gathered from every clime and every race. Roman generals still might lead them, Roman laws environ them, Roman gold employ them. Yet the fact remained, that in these armies lay the strength of the Republic, no longer within her own walls, no longer in the stout hearts of her citizens.

Perhaps the world itself was slow in seeing this degeneration. The Gracchi brothers tried to stem the tide, and they were slain, sacrificed by the nation they sought to save.[16] Cornelius Sulla was the man who completed, and at the same time made plain to all, the change that had been growing up. Having bitter grievances against his enemies in the capital, he appealed for redress, not to the Roman senate, not to the votes of the populace, but to the swords of the legions he commanded. Twice he marched his soldiers against Rome. He brushed aside the feeble resistance that was offered, and entered the city like a conqueror. The blood of those who had opposed his wishes flowed in streams. Three thousand senators and knights, the flower of the Roman aristocracy, were slain at his nod. Of the common folk and of the Italians throughout the peninsula, the slaughter was immeasurable. And when his bloody vengeance was at last glutted, Sulla ruled as an extravagant, conscienceless, licentious dictator. Rome had found a fitting master.

[Footnote 16: See The Gracchi and Their Reforms, page 259.]

The Roman people, the mighty race who had defied a Hannibal at their gates, were clearly come to an end. Sulla had proved the power of the Republic to be an empty shell. After his death, men used the empty forms awhile; but the surviving aristocrats had learned their awful lesson. They put no further faith in the strength of the city; they watched the armies and the generals; they intrigued for the various commands. It was an exciting game. Life and fortune were the stakes they risked; the prize—the mastery of a helpless world, waiting to be plundered.

Pompey and Caesar proved the ablest players. Pompey overthrew what was left of the Greek Asiatic kingdoms and returned to Rome the idol of his troops, wellnigh as powerful as had been Sulla. Caesar, looking in his turn for a place to build up an army devoted to himself, selected Gaul and spent eight years in subduing and civilizing what was in a way the most important of all Rome's conquests. In Gaul he came in contact with another, fresher Aryan race.[17] Rome received new soldiers for her legions, new brains fitted to understand and carry on the work of civilizing the world.

[Footnote 17: See Caesar Conquers Gaul, page 267.]

When Caesar, turning away from Britain,[18] marched these new-formed legions back against Rome, even as Sulla had done, it was almost like another Gallic invasion of the South. Pompey fled. He gathered his legions from Asia; and the world resounded once more to the clash of arms.

[Footnote 18: See Roman Invasion and Conquest of Britain, page 285.]

This, then, was the third and final stage of the huge struggle for empire. War was still the business of the world. Rome had first defeated foreign nations; then she had to defeat the uprisings of the subject peoples; now her chiefs, finding her exhausted, fought among themselves for the supreme power. Armies of Asiatics, armies of Gauls, each claiming to represent Rome, battled over her helpless body.

Caesar was victorious. But when the conquering power which had once belonged to the united nation became embodied in a single man, there was a new way by which it might be checked. The government of Rome, like that of the Greek and Asiatic tyrannies, became a "despotism tempered by assassination"; and Caesar was its foremost victim.[19]

[Footnote 19: See Assassination of Caesar, page 313.]

His death did not stop the fascinating gamble for empire. It only added one more move to the possible complexities of the game. The lesser players had their chance. They intrigued and they fought. Egypt, the last remaining civilized state outside of Rome, was drawn into the whirlpool also.[20] Cleopatra and Antony acted their reckless parts, and at length out of the world-wide tumult emerged "young Octavius," to assume his rôle as "Augustus Caesar," acknowledged emperor of the world.[21]

[Footnote 20: See Cleopatra's Conquest of Caesar and Antony, page 295.]

[Footnote 21: See Rome Becomes a Monarchy, page 333.]

Note, however, that the term "world" is still one of boast, not truth. Emperor over many men, Augustus was; but the powers of nature still shut many races safe beyond his mastery. The ocean bounded his dominion on the west; the deserts to the south and east; the German forests to the north. These last he did essay to conquer, but they proved beyond him. The wild German tribes having no cities, which they must defend at any cost, could afford to flee or hide. Choosing their own time and place they rose suddenly, smote the legions of Augustus, and melted into the wilderness again.[22]

[Footnote 22: See