"No description could exaggerate the miseries of Greece in the later stages of the empire. The slave population, which had formerly laboured for the wealthy, had then disappeared, and the free labourer had sunk into a serf. The uncultivated plains were traversed by bands of armed Sclavonians, who settled in great numbers in Thessaly and Macedonia. The cities of Greece ceased to receive the usual supplies of agricultural produce from the country; and even Thessalonica, with _its fertile territory and abundant pastures, was dependent on foreign importation for relief from famine_. The smaller cities, destitute of the same advantages of situation, would naturally be more exposed to depopulation, and sink more rapidly to decay. The roads, after the seizure of the local funds of the Greek cities by Justinian, were allowed to go to ruin, and the transport of provisions by land became difficult. When the Byzantine writers, after the time of Heraclius, mention the Greeks and Peloponnesus, it is with feelings of aversion and contempt."[16] Nor was Asia Minor in a more prosperous condition in the later stages of the empire. In Asia Minor the decline of the Greek race had been rapid. This decline, too, must be attributed rather to bad governments than to hostile invasions; for from the period of the Persian invasion, in the time of Heraclius, the greater part of that immense country had enjoyed almost a century of uninterrupted peace. The Persian invasions had never been very injurious to the sea-coast, where the _Greek cities were wealthy and numerous_; but the central provinces were entirely ruined. The fact that extensive districts, once populous and wealthy, _were already deserts_, is proved by the colonies which Justinian II. settled in various parts of the country. Population had disappeared even more rapidly than the agricultural resources of the country."[17] But while this was the state of matters in Italy, Asia Minor, and Greece--that is, the heart of the empire--its remoter provinces, Spain, Lybia, and Egypt, not only exhibited no symptoms of similar decay, but were, down to the very close of the reigns of the Cæsars, in the highest state of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Listen to Gibbon on this subject in regard to Spain:--