text:  So powerful was the operation of these two causes--the fixity in the state burdens payable by each municipality and the constantly declining prices owing to the vast import from agricultural regions more favoured by nature--that it fully equaled the effect of the ravages of the barbarians in the frontier provinces exposed to their incursions; and the depopulation of the rural districts was as complete in Italy and Gaul before a barbarian had passed the Alps or set his foot across the Rhine as in the plains between the Alps or the Adriatic and the Danube which had for long been ravaged by their arms