In the
souls of men there was a fatal degeneracy. There was outward prosperity
but inward corruption.
Professor Samuel Dill, in his highly instructive work on "Roman Society
in the Last Century of the Western Empire," points out the fact that
Rome's fall was due to economic and political causes as well as to the
deterioration of her morals. A close study of these causes, however,
will reveal the presence of moral influences. Professor Dill says: "The
general tendency of modern inquiry has to discover in the fall of that
august and magnificent organization, not a cataclysm, precipitated by
the impact of barbarous forces, but a process slowly prepared and
evolved by internal and economic causes." Two of these causes were the
dying out of municipal liberty and self-government, and the separation
of the upper class from the masses by sharp distributions of wealth and
privilege. It is indeed true that these causes contributed to Rome's
ruin; that the central government was weak; that the civil service was
oppressive and corrupt; that the aristocratic class was selfish; and
that the small landed proprietors were steadily growing poorer and
fewer, while, on the contrary, the upper or senatorial class was
increasing in wealth and power. But after due emphasis has been accorded
to these destructive factors, it yet remains true that the want of
public spirit and the prevailing cultivated selfishness may be traced to
a decline of faith in those religious ideals that serve to stimulate the
moral life and thus preserve the national integrity.
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