[The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon]@TWC D-Link book
The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

CHAPTER XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians
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Several examples are recorded, in the age of Honorius, of vain and popular nobles, who celebrated the year of their praetorship by a festival, which lasted seven days, and cost above one hundred thousand pounds sterling.

The estates of the Roman senators, which so far exceeded the proportion of modern wealth, were not confined to the limits of Italy.

Their possessions extended far beyond the Ionian and AEgean Seas, to the most distant provinces: the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded as an eternal monument of the Actian victory, was the property of the devout Paula; and it is observed by Seneca, that the rivers, which had divided hostile nations, now flowed through the lands of private citizens.

According to their temper and circumstances, the estates of the Romans were either cultivated by the labor of their slaves, or granted, for a certain and stipulated rent, to the industrious farmer.

The economical writers of antiquity strenuously recommend the former method, wherever it may be practicable; but if the object should be removed, by its distance or magnitude, from the immediate eye of the master, they prefer the active care of an old hereditary tenant, attached to the soil, and interested in the produce, to the mercenary administration of a negligent, perhaps an unfaithful, steward.
The opulent nobles of an immense capital, who were never excited by the pursuit of military glory, and seldom engaged in the occupations of civil government, naturally resigned their leisure to the business and amusements of private life.


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