neral poverty; and as we must suppose, that the opinions of fuch men, and the laws founded upon them, would have confiderable influence, it is probable, that the preventive check to increase from late marriages and other caufes operated to a confiderable degree among the free citizens of Greece.

For the pofitive checks to population we need not look beyond the wars, in which these finall ftates were almoft continually engaged; though we have an account of one wafting plague, at least, in Athens; and Plato supposes the cafe of his republic being already reduced by difeafe. Their wars were not only almoft conftant, but extremely bloody. In a small army, the whole of which would probably be engaged in close fight, a much greater number in proportion would be flain, than in the large modern armies, a confiderable part of which often remains untouched; and as all the free citizens of these republics were generally employed as foldiers in every war, loffes would be felt very feverely, and would not appear to be very easily repaired.

De legibus, lib. v.

Humes Efay, xi, p. 451.

CHAP.

CHAP. XIV.

Of the Checks to Population among the Romans.

THE havoc made by war in the smaller states of Italy, particularly during the first struggles of the Romans for power, feems to have been still greater than in Greece. Wallace, in his difiertation on the numbers of mankind, after alluding to the multitudes which fell by the sword in thefe times, obferves," On an accurate re"view of the hiftory of the Italians during this

a

period, we shall wonder how fuch vaft mul❝titudes could be raifed, as were engaged in "thofe continual wars till Italy was entirely "fubdued." And Livy expreffes his utter astonishment, that the Volfci and Æqui, so often as they were conquered, fhould have been able to bring fresh armies into the field." But these wonders will perhaps be fufficiently accounted for, if we fuppofe, what feems to be highly pro

a Differtation, p. 62, 8vo, 1763, Edinburgh.

b Lib. vi, c. xii.

bable,

bable, that the conftant drains from wars had introduced the habit of giving nearly full scope to the power of population; and that a much greater number of youths, in proportion to the whole people, were yearly rifing into manhood and becoming fit to bear arms, than is usual in other ftates not fimilarly circumstanced. It was, without doubt, the rapid influx of thefe fupplies, which enabled them, like the ancient Germans, to astonish future historians, by renovating in fo extraordinary a manner their defeated and half deftroyed armies.

Yet there is reafon to believe, that the practice of infanticide prevailed in Italy, as well as in Greece, from the earliest times. A law of Romulus forbad the expofing of children before they were three years old, which implies, that the custom of expofing them as foon as they were born had before prevailed. But this practice was of courfe never reforted to, unless when the drains from wars were- infufficient to make room for the rifing generation; and confequently, though it may be confidered as one of the pofitive checks to the full power of increase, yet, in the actual ftate of things, it certainly contriDionyfius Halicarn. lib. ii, 15.

buted

buted rather to promote than impede popu

lation.

Among the Romans themselves, engaged as they were in inceltant wars from the beginning of their republic to the end of it, many of which were dreadfully deftructive, the pofitive check to population from this caufe alone must have been enormously great. But this caufe alone, great as it was, would never have occafioned that want of Roman citizens, under the emperors, which prompted Auguftus and Trajan to iffue laws for the encouragement of marriage and of children, if other caufes ftill more powerful in depopulation had not concurred.

When the equality of property, which had formerly prevailed in the Roman territory, had been deftroyed by degrees, and the land had fallen into the hands of a few great proprietors; the citizens, who were by this change succesfively deprived of the means of fupporting themfelves, would naturally have no resource to prevent them from ftarving, but that of felling. their labour to the rich, as in modern ftates: but from this refource they were completely cut off by the prodigious number of flaves, which, increafing by conftant influx with the increafing luxury of Rome, filled up every employment

both

both in agriculture and manufactures. Under fuch circumstances, fo far from being astonished that the number of free citizens fhould decreafe, the wonder seems to be, that any should exist befide the proprietors. And in fact many could not have exifted but for a strange and prepofterous custom, which however, perhaps, the strange and unnatural state of the city required, that of diftributing vast quantities of corn to the poorer citizens gratis. Two hundred thousand received this diftribution in Auguftus's time; and it is highly probable, that a great part of them had little elfe to depend upon. It is fupposed to have been given to every man of full years; but the quantity was not enough for a family, and too much for an individual. could not therefore enable them to increase; and, from the manner in which Plutarch speaks of the custom of expofing children among the poor, there is great reason to believe, that many were destroyed in spite of the jus trium libetorum. The paffage in Tacitus, in which, fpeaking of the Germans, he alludes to this cuftom in Rome, seems to point to the fame con

It

b De amore prolis.

U

clufion.