ities of Greece ceased to receive the usual supplies of agricultural
produce from the country; and even Thessalonica, with _its fertile
territory and abundant pastures, was dependent on foreign importation
for relief from famine_. The smaller cities, destitute of the same
advantages of situation, would naturally be more exposed to
depopulation, and sink more rapidly to decay. The roads, after the
seizure of the local funds of the Greek cities by Justinian, were
allowed to go to ruin, and the transport of provisions by land became
difficult. When the Byzantine writers, after the time of Heraclius,
mention the Greeks and Peloponnesus, it is with feelings of aversion and
contempt."[16]

Nor was Asia Minor in a more prosperous condition in the later stages of
the empire. In Asia Minor the decline of the Greek race had been rapid.
This decline, too, must be attributed rather to bad governments than to
hostile invasions; for from the period of the Persian invasion, in the
time of Heraclius, the greater part of that immense country had enjoyed
almost a century of uninterrupted peace. The Persian invasions had never
been very injurious to the sea-coast, where the _Greek cities were
wealthy and numerous_; but the central provinces were entirely ruined.
The fact that extensive districts, once populous and wealthy, _were
already deserts_, is proved by the colonies which Justinian II. settled
in various parts of the country. Population had disappeared even more
rapidly than the agricultural resources of the country."[17]

But while this was the state of matters in Italy, Asia Minor, and
Greece--that is, the heart of the empire--its remoter provinces, Spain,
Lybia, and Egypt, not only exhibited no symptoms of similar decay, but
were, down to the very close of the reigns of the Caesars, in the highest
state of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Listen to Gibbon on this
subject in regard to Spain:--

"The situation of Spain, separated on all sides from the enemies of Rome
by the sea, the mountains, and intermediate provinces, had secured the
long tranquillity of that _remote and sequestered country_; and we may
observe, as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that in a period of
four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the history of
the Roman empire. The cities of Merida, Cordova, Seville, and Tarragona,
were numbered among the most illustrious of the Roman world. The various
plenty of the animal, vegetable, and m