On the other hand, the system of Roman tactics rendered it necessary to
procure military recruits of a degree of physical strength far above the
average standard of mankind. When the population of the empire had been
divided into two widely separated social classes of wealthy citizens and
poor cultivators, serfs, or slaves, the supply of recruits furnished by
the richest portions of the empire became very small. The danger of
employing foreign barbarians, who remained isolated amidst an
innumerable population, and surrounded by hundreds of walled towns,
manned by their own municipal guards, was evidently less than that of
entrusting legions of slaves with arms, and teaching them habits of
combination and discipline. The servile wars, which inflicted a mortal
wound on the Republic, would have been renewed, and would probably have
soon destroyed the Empire.[12]

It is customary with historians to discourse on the impolicy of the
Roman emperors in employing barbarian mercenaries; but the fact is, that
their finances did not admit of their purchasing the thews and sinews
required for the service any where but among the barbarians. The system
certainly answered admirably for the imperial government. It upheld the
tyranny of the Caesars and the terror of the Roman arms for more than a
thousand years; and it might have rendered Rome immortal had she not
committed suicide.

If the system really be so bad as it is often represented, it seems
strange that it should have been adopted with all its imperfections in
British India. But the truth is this; the mercenaries of the Roman
armies were more faithful to their contract than the emperors. It is by
sovereigns and ministers of state, not by generals of mercenaries, that
empires are prepared for destruction. Our Indian empire is always in
greater danger from a conceited Foreign secretary or a foolish
Governor-general than from a rebellion of the native troops. If our
administration be only as wise as that of Imperial Rome, somewhat more
just, and a great deal less avaricious, there seems no reason why a
British government should rule at Calcutta for a shorter period than a
Roman one at Constantinople. The laws of Rome still survive in the
courts of justice of the greater part of Europe; the spirit of the Roman
Republic breathes, at the present hour, in full energy in the Papal
councils; and are we to suppose that the institutions of a more Catholic
philanthropy, in the progres