← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · edward gibbon
Thread ID: 5277 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-03-01
2003-03-01 18:17 | User Profile
More than two hundred years ago the great Edward Gibbon wrote the following (Chapter 17 )Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire> **In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by the invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and dangers of a military life...
Such was the horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected the minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth of Italy and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of their right hand, to escape from being pressed into the service; and this strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to deserve the severe animadversion of the laws...
[color=red]The introduction of barbarians into the Roman army became every day more universal, more necessary and more fatal. [/color] **