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"In the last age of the Western Empire there is no deterioration in the position and influence of women." Salvian's description of Christendom is probably exaggerated and one-sided, but exactly the same may be said in an even greater degree of the descriptions of ancient Rome left by clever Pagan satirists and ascetic Christian preachers.
We can well believe, therefore, Salvian's complaints of the wickedness of those pantomimes of which he says, that 'honeste non possunt vel accusari; he cannot even accuse them without saying what he is ashamed to say; I believe also his assertion, that they would not let people be modest, even if they wished; that they inflamed the passions, and debauched the imaginations of young and old, man and woman, and but I am not here to argue that sin is sin, or that the population of London would be the worse if the most shameless persons among them were put by the Government in possession of Drury Lane and Covent Garden; and that, and nothing less than that, did the Roman pantomimes mean, from the days of Juvenal till those of the most holy and orthodox Empress Theodora.
The last five remaining books of the honest soldier's story are a tissue of horrors, from reading which one turns away as from a slaughter-house or a witches' sabbath. No one, again, will think these statements exaggerated who knows Salvian's De Gubernatione Dei.
Conceive him seeing around him estates destroyed, farms burnt, ladies and gentlemen, his own friends and relations, reduced in an hour to beggary, plundered, stript, driven off in gangs I do not choose to finish the picture: but ask yourselves, would an honourable man wish to bring sons much more daughters into the world to endure that? Put yourselves in Salvian's place.
Forget all that awhile; and put yourselves in Salvian's place, the gentleman of Gaul, while Franks and Goths, Burgunds and Vandals were sweeping, wave after wave, over that lovely land; and judge him rationally, and talk as little as possible of his superstition, and as much as possible of his human feeling, prudence, self-control, and common sense.
But when defective Roman laws began to be worked by bad men, and that for 200 years, then indeed came times of evil. Let us take, then, Salvian's own account of the cause of Roman decay. He, an eye-witness, imputes it all to the morals of Roman citizens. They were, according to him, of the very worst.
And the reasons, in Salvian's case, and many more in his day, are patent to common human understanding. Do not fancy that he had any private reason, such as we should very fairly assign now: public reasons, and those, such as God grant no living man may see, caused wise men to thank God that they were not burdened with wife and child.
No wonder, therefore, if Salvian's accounts of Gaulish profligacy be true, that Gaulish recklessness reached at last a pitch all but incredible.
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