e provinces which
rebelled, was in the hands of foreign mercenaries; and Rome paid
tribute to obtain peace from some of those she had insulted in the hour
of her prosperity and insolence.

Gold corrupted all the courts of justice; there were no laws for the
rich, who committed crimes with impunity; while the poor did the
same through want, wretchedness, and despair.

In this miserable state of things, the poor, for the sake of protection,
became a sort of partizans or retainers of the rich, whom they were
ready to serve on all occasions: so that, except in a few forms, there
was no trace left of the institutions that had raised the Romans above
all other nations. [end of page #43]

CHAP. V.

_Of the Cities and Nations that rose to Wealth and Power in the
middle Ages, after the Fall of the Western Empire, and previously to
the Discovery of the Passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good
Hope, and of America.--Different Effects of Wealth on Nations in cold
and in warm Climates, and of the Fall of the Eastern Empire_.

After the fall of the western empire, the Italian states were the first
that revived commerce in the west of Europe, which they may indeed
be said alone to have kept alive, with the single exception of the city
of Marseilles.

Venice had begun to flourish when the barbarians took Rome; and
Florence afforded a refuge for those of the nobility who escaped from
their terrible grasp: but, for four centuries after, till the time of
Charlemagne, there was, indeed, nothing that had either the semblance
of power, wealth, or greatness, in Europe. The Saracens, as early as
the seventh century, had got possession of Egypt, and had extended
their ravages in Asia, to the borders of the Black Sea, having in vain
endeavoured to take the city of Constantinople, and make themselves
masters of the eastern empire, as their rivals, the Goths, had conquered
that in the west.

The momentary greatness which shone forth in the reign of
Charlemagne was, in many respects, like that during the reign of
Alexander the Great. The power of each depended on the individual
character of the man, and their empires, extended by their courage and
skill, fell to pieces immediately after they were no more.

As the only permanent change that Alexander had effected was that of
removing the chief seat of commerce from Phoenicia to the southern
border of the Mediterranean Sea; so, the only permanent effect of the
reign of Charle