THE GERMANIC INVASION 9 an imperial edict bestowed the right of Roman citizen- ship on all the inhabitants of the empire.1 Roman citizens were then counted by the millions. The citizen- ship was being conserved at the expense of the rest of the world. But the Roman regime devoured little by little the peoples of the empire as it had those of Italy. Too many soldiers, and especially too many slaves, were required. Then it favored the rich in too great degree; the small proprietors could not maintain them- selves in competition with the great, and so they became soldiers or were mined. The great land-owner acquired their farms. At length there was nothing left in the country but large estates cultivated by slaves. Furthermore, this population of slaves was not renewed; and when one of the great calamities so common then, an epidemic, a war, or an invasion of barbarians, had destroyed the cultivators of a domain the soil remained without inhabitants. Gradually, especially on the frontiers, the fields became destitute of men; people were to be found only in the cities. In many districts veritable deserts were formed. To re- people the country the emperors settled their bands of barbarians whom they had conquered and made pris- oners. These barbarians were not proprietors of the soil, but were only serfs; like the helots of Sparta, they were attached to an estate which neither they nor their children could leave, and they paid rent to the owner; they were peasants destined to remain so forever and * From this time all the inhabitants of the empire called themselves Romans. When the barbarians entered Gaul, they did not find Gauls, only Romans; and even in the Orient where Greek was spoken, the people down to the Turkish conquest always called themselves Rom&n,