And the
strength of this centralizing tendency was further enhanced by the
military character of the government which was necessitated by perpetual
frontier warfare against the barbarians. As year after year went by, the
provincial towns and cities were governed less and less by their local
magistrates, more and more by prefects responsible to the emperor only.
There were other co-operating causes, economical and social, for the
decline of the empire; but this change alone, which was consummated by
the time of Diocletian, was quite enough to burn out the candle of Roman
strength at both ends. With the decrease in the power of the local
governments came an increase in the burdens of taxation and conscription
that were laid upon them.[14] And as "the dislocation of commerce and
industry caused by the barbarian inroads, and the increasing demands of
the central administration for the payment of its countless officials
and the maintenance of its troops, all went together," the load at last
became greater "than human nature could endure." By the time of the
great invasions of the fifth century, local political life had gone far
towards extinction throughout Roman Europe, and the tribal organization
of the Teutons prevailed in the struggle simply because it had come to
be politically stronger than any organization that was left to
oppose it.
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