the Romans and their associates succeeded in bringing
large parts of Europe, Asia and Africa under their control,
but the control was so rigid and temporary that tribalism
and local nationalisms broke loose from the fetters of central
authority and coercive integration, shattering the
structure of Roman civilization and its structural core--the
Roman Empire. Instead of resulting in closer cooperation,
the strategy and tactics of the Roman builders and
organizers led to contradictions, bitter feuds, civil strife,
independence movements which combined with expansionist
diplomacy and periodic wars to discourage, frustrate
and eventually to eliminate peace, order and planned
progress.

2. The spread of chattel slavery had a profound effect upon
the texture of Roman life. At the outset Roman family
farms housed the bulk of the population. During the cycle
of Roman civilization unnumbered millions of captives
were seized in the course of military operations and reduced
to slavery. By the end of the Roman cycle the
work-load of agriculture, commerce, industry, mining,
transport, and the domestic life of the well-to-do was
carried by slaves. Basically, therefore, the Roman world
was divided first into Romans and non-Romans and second
into masters and slaves, with a third category which consisted
of an immense bureaucracy (including the military),
a professional and technological group and a heavy burden
of persistent parasitism.

4. Growth of the abyss that separated wealth and the