There was but one end possible to this accumulation of move upon move, on the false basis of compulsory trade unionism, and work under cost for the proletariat. The whole system was so destructive of character and of wealth that it ruined the empire. Slavery was by no means the destruction of Rome, it flourished in the centuries when the Government was strongest, and diminished in advance of the social decay. Vice was by no means the destruction of Rome, it was worst when Rome was most powerful and was lessened in the decline. The one movement which grew steadily as Rome declined, and which was intimately connected with every stage of that decline, was the compulsion of labour and the maintenance of the wastrel as a burden on society. It was that which pulled down the greatest political organism, by the crushing of initiative and character, and by the steady drain on all forms of wealth. The free Goth was the welcome deliverer from social bondage. This growth of trade unionism has been followed here as a whole, without stopping to note other effects of the same type of mind, which are also very instructive to us. We now turn back to look at some earlier developments. The Empire had a long age of internal peace, from the accession of Vespasian to the rise of Severus, comprising four or five generations. Men had forgotten in Italy and the provinces what war meant, as the only troubles had been frontier fighting. They ceased to value the strength of unity, and the importance of keeping the empire bound together. The sayings attributed to Gallienus in the middle of the third century cannot be looked on as merely wild vagaries, contrary to all the public opinion around him. Had no one else advocated the subdivision of the empire, he would never have continued to jest about not needing the produce of Gaul or of Syria. Such phrases must have been familiar among a little-Italy party, of whom Gallienus was the agent and mouthpiece. And such a situation will help to explain his conduct regarding the captivity of Valerian his father in Persia. A glance at old Valerian shows him to have been a rigid gentleman of the old school, like Galba or Nerva. And, when he was captured, the little-Italy party who had hold of Gallienus were relieved rather than otherwise. Had George III been captured by the French, probably George IV and Charles James Fox would not have been very anxious for his return.