ernment which was necessitated by perpetual
frontier warfare against the barbarians. As year after year went by, the
provincial towns and cities were governed less and less by their local
magistrates, more and more by prefects responsible to the emperor only.
There were other co-operating causes, economical and social, for the
decline of the empire; but this change alone, which was consummated by
the time of Diocletian, was quite enough to burn out the candle of Roman
strength at both ends. With the decrease in the power of the local
governments came an increase in the burdens of taxation and conscription
that were laid upon them.[14] And as "the dislocation of commerce and
industry caused by the barbarian inroads, and the increasing demands of
the central administration for the payment of its countless officials
and the maintenance of its troops, all went together," the load at last
became greater "than human nature could endure." By the time of the
great invasions of the fifth century, local political life had gone far
towards extinction throughout Roman Europe, and the tribal organization
of the Teutons prevailed in the struggle simply because it had come to
be politically stronger than any organization that was left to
oppose it.

We have now seen how the two great political systems that were founded
upon the Ancient City both ended in failure, though both achieved
enormous and lasting results. And we have seen how largely both these
political failures were due to the absence of the principle of
representation from the public life of Greece and Rome. The chief
problem of civilization, from the political point of view, has always
been how to secure concerted action among men on a great scale without
sacrificing local independence. The ancient history of Europe shows that
it is not possible to solve this problem without the aid of the
principle of representation. Greece, until overcome by external force,
sacredly maintained local self-government, but in securing permanent
concert of action it was conspicuously unsuccessful. Rome secured
concert of action on a gigantic scale, and transformed the thousand
unconnected tribes and cities it conquered into an organized European
world, but in doing this it went far towards extinguishing local
self-government. The advent of the Teutons upon the scene seems
therefore to have been necessary, if only to supply the indispensable
element without which the dilemma of civilization c