“It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.”

— Edward Gibbon , The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Vol. 1, Chap. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=aLcWAAAAQAAJ&q="It+has+been"+"calculated+by+the+ablest+politicians+that+no+State+without+being+soon+exhausted+can+maintain+above+the+hundredth+part+of+its+members+in+arms+and+idleness"&pg=PA106#v=onepage
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

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Edward Gibbon 43

English historian and Member of Parliament 1737–1794

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