The greater part was united in immense domains, sometimes embracing whole provinces, the administration of which was intrusted to freedmen, whose only consideration was, how to cultivate the land with the least possible expense, and how to extract from their labourers the greatest degree of work with the smallest quantity of food. The agriculturists, as well what were called freedmen as slaves, were almost all barbarians by birth, without any interest in a social order which only oppressed them, without courage for its defence, and without any pecuniary resources for themselves; their numbers also diminished with an alarming rapidity, partly from desertion, partly from new invasions of barbarians, who carried them off to sell as slaves in other Roman provinces, and finally from a mortality, the necessary consequence of poverty and starvation. Italy, nevertheless, was supposed to enjoy a constant prosperity. During the entire ages of Trajan and the Antonines, a succession of virtuous and philosophic emperors followed each other; the world was in peace; the laws were wise and well administered; riches seemed to increase; each succeeding generation raised palaces more splendid, monuments and public edifices more sumptuous, than the preceding; the senatorial families found their revenues increase; the treasury levied greater imposts. But it is not on the mass of wealth, it is on its distribution, that the prosperity of states depends; increasing opulence continued to meet the eye, but men became more miserable; the rural population, formerly active, robust, and energetic, were succeeded by a foreign race, while the inhabitants of towns sank in vice and idleness, or perished in want, amidst the riches they had themselves created. THE BARBARIAN INVADERS [Sidenote: [476-814 A.D.]] It was into this Italy, such as despotism had made it, that the barbarians penetrated. Eager for the booty which it contained and could not defend, they repeatedly ravaged it during the last two centuries of the Western Empire. The mercenary troops that Rome had levied amongst them for its defence, preferring pillage to pay, frequently turned their arms against those they were engaged to defend. They vied with the Romans in making and unmaking emperors; and generally chose them from their own ranks, in order to secure to the soldier a greater share of the property of the citizen. The booty diminished as the avidity of these foreigners increased. The pomp of the Western Empire soon appeared, to an army thus formed, a useless expense. Odoacer, of the nation of the Heruli, chief of the mercenaries who then served in Italy, suppressed it by deposing, in 476, the last emperor. He took upon himself the title of king, and distributed among his soldiers one-third of the land in the most fertile provinces; he governed during seventeen years this still glorious country, as a rich farm which the barbarians had a right to cultivate for their sole use.