Prof. Ferrero (_Greatness and Decline of Rome_, Eng. trans. ii, App. A) has independently (but in agreement with Weber and Salvioli) carried M'Culloch's thesis further, and has opposed the view that the "competition" of Sicilian and African wheat "was the cause of the agricultural depression from which Italy began to suffer in 150 B.C." His own theory is the singular one that the "depression" was caused by "the increased cost of living" arising out of luxurious habits! This untenable and indeed unintelligible conclusion he ostensibly reaches by a series of arguments that are alternately incoherent and rotatory, of propositions some of which are rebutted by himself, and of assumptions that are plainly astray. The dispute may be condensed thus:-- (1) "In antiquity," the Professor begins, "each district consumed its own wheat"; yet he goes on to mention that in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Attica was "obliged to import, even in good seasons, between 12,000,000 and 15,000,000 bushels." This contradiction he appears to think is saved by the addendum that "the amount in question is a very small one, compared with the figures of modern commerce." Naturally it is, Athens being a small State compared with those of to-day. But the contradiction stands unresolved. And it follows that larger towns, not placed in fruitful "districts," would have proportionally larger imports. (2) "Moreover," writes the Professor, "while the industrial countries of to-day seek so far as possible to check the import of cereals by protective duties, Athens used every expedient of war and diplomacy to render the supply of imported corn both regular and abundant." It is startling to find a professor of history, a sociological historian, unaware that Britain, Belgium, and Holland have no import duties on corn. (The most exclusive State in that matter is Portugal, which, with no pretensions to be an industrial State, prohibits corn imports altogether.) (3) More plausibly, Prof. Ferrero argues that the policy of Athens proves that "corn was not easily transported for sale beyond the local market." But the efforts of the Athenians "to obtain the mastery of the Black Sea, and especially of the Bosphorus, _in order to capture the corn trade for themselves_, or to entrust it, on their own conditions, to whom they pleased," proves that the difficulties of transport were mainly those set up by hostile States or pirates, and that--as the Professor admits--the fertile Crimea, with its sparse population, yielded an easy surplus for export.