CHAP. VIII.

TO THE CAPITAL.

195

Spain, notwithstanding the large sums which atan early period had been drawn from them, con-tinued to increase in wealth and prosperity upto the final close of the Roman dominion overthose countries.

It appears thus fair to conclude that the onlymetallic tribute transmitted to the capital fromthe provinces, under the reign of Augustus andof his immediate successors, was that surpluswhich remained after discharging the expensesof the civil and military departments of theseveral districts, and such sums as the prefectsand other officers nominated by the emperorfrom among the nobility of the capital couldextort by their oppressions, or save by theirparsimony.

Whatever the annual amount may have been,in the course of three centuries it would rise toan enormous s'um, and furnish sufficient to ac-count—for the plunder found in Rome when itwas captured by Alaric and by the African Van-dals—for the great expenditure which must havebeen occasioned by the erection of Byzantium,and—for the sums which were necessary to sup-port those armies which were so feebly opposedto the invading hordes of the barbarous nationsthat assailed the empire on every frontier.

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