1, That in former times Italy had been an exporting country:  “olim ex Italia commeatus in longinquas provincias portabantur.” 2, That at the time when Tacitus wrote, in the days of the Emperor Trajan, it had ceased to be so, and had come to import largely from Africa and Lybia, “sed nunc Africam potius et Egyptum exercemus.” 3, That this was not the result of any supervening sterility or unfruitfulness, “nec nunc infecunditate laboratur,” but was from causes which made it more profitable to purchase grain in the Egyptian or Lybian markets, “sed Africam POTIUS et Egyptum exercemus.”

Of the extent to which this decay of agriculture in the central provinces of the Roman empire went, in the latter stages of its history, we have the following striking account in the authentic pages of Gibbon:—­

“Since the age of Tiberius the decay of agriculture had been felt in Italy; and it was a just subject of complaint that the life of the Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and the waves.  In the division and decline of the empire, the tributary harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn; the numbers of the inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence; and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war, pestilence, and famine.  Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer, and he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that, in Emilia, Tuscany, and the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost extirpated.”—­GIBBON, vol. vi. c. xxxvi. p. 235.

Of the progress and extent of this decay, Gibbon gives the following account in another part of his great work:—­

“The agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined; and in the progress of despotism, which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of paying.  According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennines, from the Tiber to the Silarius.  Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favour of 330,000 English acres of desert and uncultivated land, which amounted to one-eighth of the whole surface of the province.  As the footsteps of the barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation, which is recorded in the laws, (Cod.  Theod. lxi. t. 38, l. 2,) can be ascribed only to the administration of the Roman emperors.”—­GIBBON, vol. iii. c. xviii. p. 87.  Edition in 12 volumes.

Michelet observes, in his late profound and able History of France—­