never thought of, and from first to last the Roman comitia remained a primary assembly.  The result was that, as the burgherhood enlarged, the assembly became a huge mob as little fitted for the transaction of public business as a town-meeting of all the inhabitants of New York would be.  The functions which in Athens were performed by the assembly were accordingly in Rome performed largely by the aristocratic senate; and for the conflicts consequently arising between the senatorial and the popular parties it was difficult to find any adequate constitutional check.  Outside of Italy, moreover, in the absence of a representative system, the Roman government was a despotism which, whether more or less oppressive, could in the nature of things be nothing else than a despotism.  But nothing is more dangerous for a free people than the attempt to govern a dependent people despotically.  The bad government kills out the good government as surely as slave-labour destroys free-labour, or as a debased currency drives out a sound currency.  The existence of proconsuls in the provinces, with great armies at their beck and call, brought about such results as might have been predicted, as soon as the growing anarchy at home furnished a valid excuse for armed interference.  In the case of the Roman world, however, the result is not to be deplored, for it simply substituted a government that was practicable under the circumstances for one that had become demonstrably impracticable.

As regards the provinces the change from senatorial to imperial government at Rome was a great gain, inasmuch as it substituted an orderly and responsible administration for irregular and irresponsible extortion.  For a long time, too, it was no part of the imperial policy to interfere with local customs and privileges.  But, in the absence of a representative system, the centralizing tendency inseparable from the position of such a government proved to be irresistible.  And the strength of this centralizing tendency was further enhanced by the military character of the government 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.