A Short History of Italy (476-1900)

In the year 476 an unfortunate young man, mocked with the great names of the founders of the City and of the Empire, Romulus Augustus, nicknamed Augustulus, was deposed from the throne of the Caesars by a Barbarian general in the Imperial service, and the Roman Empire in Italy came to its end. This act was but the outward sign that the power of Italy was utterly gone, and that in the West at least the Barbarians were indisputably conquerors in the long struggle which they had carried on for centuries with the Roman Empire.

That Empire, at the period of its greatness, embraced all the countries around the Mediterranean Sea; it was the political embodiment of the Mediterranean civilization. In Europe, to the northeast, it reached as far as the Rhine and the Danube; it included England. Beyond the Rhine and the Danube dwelt the Barbarians. Europe was thus divided into two parts, the civilized and the Barbarian: one, a great Latin empire which rested upon slavery, and was governed by a highly centralized bureaucracy; the other, a collection of tribes of Teutonic blood, bound together in a very simple form of society, and essentially democratic in character.

The Empire, composed of many races, Etruscan, Ligurian, Iberian, Celtic, Basque, Greek, Egyptian, and divers others, had been created and maintained by the military and administrative genius of Rome. Over all these people Roman law and Roman order prevailed. All enjoyed the Pax Romana. From Cadiz to Milan, from Milan to Byzantium, from Byzantium to Palmyra, stretched the great Roman roads. Coins, weights, and measures were everywhere the same. The inhabitants of Africa, Asia, and Europe, enfranchised by an Imperial edict, were thankful to be Roman citizens. To this day Roman law, the Romance languages, and the Roman Catholic Church testify to the vigour and solidity of Roman dominion. The city of Rome was, and had been for centuries, the head of the world. From east and west, from north and south, booty, spoils, taxes, tribute had flowed into Rome. Even after the seat of government had been removed to Constantinople (A. D. 330), visitors from the new capital were astounded to behold the Roman temples, baths, amphitheatres, forums, circuses, and palaces, all glittering with marble and bronze. But the riches acquired by conquest and tribute had brought seeds of evil with them. Society was divided into the very rich and the very poor; the simple laborious life of the freemen of ancient Rome was gone; the regular occupations of production had been abandoned to serfs and slaves; moderate incomes and plain living had disappeared. The middle class had been thrust down to the level of the plebs. In the country the small proprietors had been reduced to a position little better than that of the serfs, while the great landlords had got vast tracts of land into their hands. Nearly half the population were slaves. Taxes had become heavier and heavier as the exigencies of the Empire grew; great numbers of officials were maintained, and great mercenary armies. The rich controlled the government, and shifted almost the whole burden of taxation from their own shoulders to those of the poor. In the cities, each imitating Rome so far as it could, had grown up a vicious unemployed class, living on the distribution of bread which was paid for out of the public revenues.

On the farther side of the Rhine and the Danube, in marked contrast with this society, the Teutonic Barbarians tilled their lands and herded their flocks. They dwelt in little communities which were banded together into tribes; and these in turn were united in a sort of loose confederation, which assumed the semblance of a nation only when under the necessity of military action, and then the adult male population constituted the army. Their buildings were of the humblest character, their clothes rude, their arts primitive; they could neither read nor write, and their men cared for little besides hunting and fighting. They were, however, a free, self-respecting, self-governing people, electing their king, and meeting in one great assembly to enact their laws. On the Roman borders the Barbarians had become Christians, unfortunately not Trinitarians, but mere Arians, heretics in the eyes of the orthodox Catholics; so their Christianity hardly served to smooth their relations with the Romans.