dued, Rome began to lose, by degrees, all that
she had won by conquest. How could she maintain her power? The
comparative state of civilization between the victors and the vanquished
had prevented union or consolidation into one substantial and
homogeneous whole; there was no extended and regular administration, no
general and safe communication; the provinces were only connected with
Rome by the tribute they paid; Rome was unknown in the provinces, except
by the tribute she exacted. Everywhere, in Asia Minor, in Africa, in
Spain, in Britain, in the North of Gallia, small colonies defended and
maintained their independence; all the power of the Emperors was
inadequate to compel the submission of the Isaurians. The whole formed a
chaos of nations half vanquished and semi-barbarous, without interest or
existence in the State of which they were considered a portion, and
which Rome denominated the Empire.

No sooner was this Empire conquered, than it began to dissolve, and that
haughty city which looked upon every region as subdued where she could,
by maintaining an army, appoint a proconsul, and levy imposts, soon saw
herself compelled to abandon, almost voluntarily, the possessions she
was unable to retain. In the year of Christ 270, Aurelian retired from
Dacia, and tacitly abandoned that territory to the Goths; in 412,
Honorius recognized the independence of Great Britain and Armorica; in
428, he wished the inhabitants of Gallia Narbonensis to govern
themselves. On all sides we see the Romans abandoning, without being
driven out, countries whose obedience, according to the expression of
Montesquieu, _weighed upon them_, and which, never having been
incorporated with the Empire, were sure to separate from it on the first
shock.

The shock came from a quarter which the Romans, notwithstanding their
pride, had never considered one of their provinces. Even more barbarous
than the Gauls, the Britons, and the Spaniards, the Germans had never
been conquered, because their innumerable tribes, without fixed
residences or country, ever ready to advance or retreat, sometimes threw
themselves, with their wives and flocks, upon the possessions of Rome,
and at others retired before her armies, leaving nothing for conquest
but a country without inhabitants, which they re-occupied as soon as the
weakness or distance of the conquerors afforded them the opportunity. It
is to this wandering life of a hunting nation, to this facility of
f