Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c16.3

c16.3

It is not my intention to enter into a detailed examination of these various causes, which have been so often and so ably discussed by the historians of the decline and fall of the Roman empire. I shall content myself with observing that the ruin of the Roman power was not the effect of any single event, or the result of any particular policy, but the gradual consequence of a long series of errors and misfortunes, which undermined the foundations of the state, and prepared the way for its final overthrow. The barbarians, who had long been the terror of the frontiers, at length became the masters of the provinces; and the empire, which had once extended its dominion over the greater part of the known world, was reduced to a narrow territory, and finally extinguished by the sword of the conqueror.