f fifteen days for the city.[12] Famine in Rome was
frequent under Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Claudian laments,
that after Egypt had been assigned to Constantinople, Rome had come to
derive its subsistence solely from Lybia, and depended on the _double_
chances of the seasons and the winds.

----"Nunquam secura futuri,
Semper inops, ventique fidem poscebat et anni."[13]

"When Africa revolted under Gildo, in the reign of Honorius, Rome," says
Gibbon, "was on _the brink of starvation_, from which she was only saved
by large importations _from Gaul_."[14] She still depended on her
provinces; domestic agriculture was ruined. Claudian represents the
genius of ancient Rome bewailing, in pathetic and eloquent terms, her
dependence for food on the nations she had conquered, in words which all
governments rendering their people dependent on foreign supplies would
do well to bear in mind. "Formerly," says the poet, "my prayers used to
be that my legions might triumph on the banks of the Araxes, or that the
consul might display his eagles at Susa; _now all I ask is a supply of
food to avert the extremities of hunger_. The province of Africa, which
furnishes corn to my people, is under the power of Gildo. _He intercepts
our supplies, and our food is at his mercy._ He sells the harvests which
belong to the descendants of Romulus; he possesses the fields purchased
by my blood. The warrior people which conquered the world, now
dishonoured and in want, endures the miserable punishment of peace;
_blockaded by no enemy, they are like the inhabitants of a besieged
town_. Death impends at every moment; there remain only doubtful
supplies for a few days. _My greatness has been my ruin_; I was safer
when my territory was more limited; would that its boundaries were once
more at my gates! But, if I am doomed to perish, at least let me have a
different fate; let me be conquered by another Porsenna; let my city be
burnt by a second Brennus. All things are more tolerable than
hunger."[15]

Nor was the state of Greece, in the later stages of the empire, more
favourable.

"No description could exaggerate the miseries of Greece in the later
stages of the empire. The slave population, which had formerly laboured
for the wealthy, had then disappeared, and the free labourer had sunk
into a serf. The uncultivated plains were traversed by bands of armed
Sclavonians, who settled in great numbers in Thessaly and Macedonia. The
c