Identifier: storyofancientna00west (find matches)
Title: The story of the ancient nations : a text-book for high schools
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Westermann, William Linn, 1873-1954
Subjects: History, Ancient
Publisher: New York : London : D. Appleton and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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e was astonishing. The grainsupply of Italy, as we have seen, had shifted first from Italyto Sicily; thence, owing to the wearing out of the soil, itshifted to northern Africa and Egypt, where irrigation washighly developed. In northern Africa the heavy rainfall was caught and heldin cisterns and largebasins, and the outletupon the fields wascarefully regulated. The Roman land-owners of Africa didnot use slaves, butfound it more profitable to let out theland in small hold-ings to the coloni. Inthat country the ancient traveler saw great villas surroundedby the huts of peasants, who paid to the land-owners one-thirdof t heir crops as lease money. In t he desert of nort hern Africa.once richly covered with grain fields, the ruins of large citiesare still to be found, one of them Timgad. almost rivaling Pom-peii in interest. In the fourth century, a. d., there was a greatdecline in the prosperity of Africa, when the imperial estatespassed into the hands of landed proprietors, each owning
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Mosaic raosi tax Provihcb of Ajtuca. It Shows the Villa of a Great Land-Owner with itsSurrounding Garden. THE DECLINE OF GRECO-ROMAN CIVILIZATION 441 immense tracts oi grain land or pasture land, and the Land-lords moved to Rome or other large cities, so that thesystem became one oi absentee landlordism. This broughtoppression upon the coloni, resulting in peasant outbreaks, which mined the agricultural interests oi the province.553. Shattering of the Empire, 235-270 A. D.—In thesucceeding period, the weakness o( the Empire reached itsclimax. Of twenty-three emperors who ruled from 235to 2S5 a. d. onlv two died a natural death. One of these

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