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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 Excerpt:...are born of transient unions, only one or two of them are kept, in order to leave them as rich as their parents. But let sickness strike down one of these children and war the other, and the house is left childless. Thus have our cities perished." 1 And unhappily we may say as he does: "Thus is our country depopulated." A singular similarity between two so different civilizations, in which the same anxiety for comfort has produced the same effects! The evil pointed out three centuries before by Polybius had only gone on increasing. That which was then true of Greece becomes true now of Italy. We see the rewards promised by Augustus to the heads of numerous families, but in vain: all failed against the selfishness of these nobles who now lived only for pleasure. Shameful vices, the plague-spot of the East in all ages,2 and the credit which, even with important personages, a fortune without heir secured, increased daily the number of men who avoided the duties of paternity. Among those even whom the law condemned, some avoided its stroke and usurped the privileges reserved for useful citizens. The unmarried were seen claiming a place of honor in the theatre in virtue of the./ms trium liberorum; so that the law (Julia Poppaea) was found to have put at the Emperor's disposal one privilege the more for the reward of egotism and vanity. "Now," says Pliny, "we boast of having barren wives, and not even an only son is desired." "A man denies his own," says also Seneca.3 "Children are abandoned," adds Tacitus. 1 Polybius, xxxvii. 7. Cf. Zumpt, Ueber den Stand der BecSlkeruni/ und die Volksvermehrung iro Alterthum, pp. 14-16. Pliny, Epist. iv. 15; Seneca, Consol, ad Marc. 19. This conduct of the higher classes tu...