Search -
The Roman History, From the Foundation of the City of Rome, to the Destruction of the Western Empire
The Roman History From the Foundation of the City of Rome to the Destruction of the Western Empire Author:Oliver Goldsmith General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1821 Original Publisher: Cumming Subjects: Rome Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where... more » you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: ,. CHAP. XVIII. From the destruction of Carthage to ihe end of- tLj sedition of the Gracchi. , W E Ksve hitherto seen this great peopla U. -C-. by slow degrees, ristng into power, and at 6S1. length reigning without a rival. We have hitherto seen all the virtues which give strength and. conquest, one by one, entering into the state, and forming an unconquerable empire From this tims forward, -we are to survey a different picture: a powerful state, giving admission to all the vices-that tend to divide, enslave, and at last, totally to destroy it. This seems to be the great period of Roman power, their cortqueJts afterwards might be more numerous, and their dominions more extensive, but their extension -was rather an increase of glory than of strength; For a long time, even after ihe admission of their vices, the benerits of their former virtues continued to operate; but their future triumphs rather spread their power than increased it, they rather gave it surface than solulity. They now began daily to degenerate from their ancient modesty, plainness, and severity of life- The triumphs, and the spoils of Asia,- brought in a taste for splendid expence, and thestf produced avarice and inverted ambition, so that from henceforward, the history seems that of another people. The two Gracchi were the first that saw this strange corruption among the great, and resolved to repress it by renewing the Licirtian law, which, as we hava seen, had enacted, that no person in the state should possess above 500 acres of land, but that the overplus should become the property of...« less