304 Outlines of European History Disappear- ance of liberty and free citizen- ship many a worthy man secretly fled from his lands to become a wan- dering beggar, or even to take up a life of robbery and violence. In this way the Empire lost just that prosperous class of citizens who should have been the leaders in business enterprises. Under this oriental despotism the liberty for which men had striven so long disappeared in Europe, and the once free Roman citizen had no independent life of his own. Even his wages and the prices of the goods he bought or sold were as far as possi- ble fixed for him by the Emperor. For the will of the Emperor had now become law, and his decrees were dispatched through- out the length and breadth of the Roman dominions. His in- numerable officials kept an eye upon even the humblest citizen. They watched the grain dealers, butchers, and bakers, and saw to it that they properly supplied the public and never deserted their occupation. If the government could have had its way, it would have had every one belong to a definite class of society, and his children after him. In some cases it forced the son to follow the profession of his father. It kept the unruly poor in the towns quiet by furnishing them with. bread, and sometimes with wine, meat, and clothes. It continued to provide amuse- ment for them by expensive entertainments, such as races and gladiatorial combats. In a word, the Roman government now attempted to regulate almost every interest in life. Staggering under his crushing burden of taxes, in a state which was practically bankrupt, the citizen of every class had now become a mere cog in the vast machinery of the government. He had no other function than to toil for the State, which ex- acted so much of the fruit of his labor that he was fortunate if ijt proved barely possible for him to survive on the balance. As a mere toiler for the State, he was finally where the peasant on the Nile had been for thousands of years. The Emperor had become a Pharaoh, and the Roman Empire a colossal Egypt of ancient days. Such a complete transformation of State and society in the Roman Empire was accomplished only by unlimited application
