municipal duties, and the exactions of the central government.

It is not necessary for me to trace here the development of that
financial policy which resulted in the ruin, I may say the
annihilation of this order. Suffice it to say that it formed the
capital fund of the government which exhausted it, and when the source
of supply was destroyed, production ceased, and with it, of course,
all means of governmental support. Where the extinction of this
"middle class" touches the point of our inquiry is in affording an
explanation of a circumstance in the history of the Lombard
subjugation of the Italian towns, which without consideration of this
fact would appear almost incomprehensible. I refer to the utter
passivity of the inhabitants, not only in the matter of resistance to
attack, which the greater strength and courage of the invaders perhaps
rendered useless, but in what is more surprising, the fact that after
the easy conquest was completed, we hear nothing of the manner in
which the people adapted themselves to the totally new condition of
life and of government to which they were subjected. Even if we can
understand hearing nothing of what the people did, at least we should
expect to hear what was done with it, what it became. The story of its
resistance might be short and soon forgotten, but the story of its
sufferings, of its complaints, of struggle against the entire change
in the order and character of its life, should be a long one.

But of this no record, hardly mention even appears. When the central
government falls and the last of its legions are destroyed or have
departed, there seems to be no thought of any other element in
society. If the evidence of the law codes did not tell us that a Roman
population existed, history would record little to indicate its
presence. Not only is even the slightest trace of nationality effaced,