and moral condition of the people. The wars with the Samnites were attended with unprecedented cruelty and outrage. Sicily was desolated, and the capture of Agrigentum distinguished by the massacre of a large portion of its population, the whole of the remainder being sold as slaves. The war with Carthage was marked by the desolation of Africa, while Carthage revenged herself by plundering the towns on the Italian coast. Calabria was plundered and enslaved. The demands on the colonies for the maintenance of the war, were enormous. The towns on the coast at one time plundered by the Carthaginians, at another compelled to furnish ships and men to replace the fleets destroyed by the enemy, were ruined. The productive power was in a constant course of diminution. The poor were daily becoming poorer. The clients of the rich were daily increasing in number. The condition of the slaves was rapidly deteriorating. Great numbers were introduced from abroad, to take the place of the free citizens destroyed in the war. Vast public works were undertaken, requiring the collection of heavy taxes and the expenditure of large amounts of public money. The number of public officers was rapidly increasing. Every day tended to increase the inequality of the moral, physical, and political condition of the several portions of the community.

The subjugation of Northern Italy was followed by the second Punic war, in which a large portion of Italy was rendered desolate. The oppressions of the country people increased rapidly, while the people of Rome itself were exempt from taxation, and had provisions distributed almost gratuitously. The inhabitants of the country towns endeavoured to transfer themselves to Rome, that they might relieve themselves from their burthens. Extensive tracts of land became desolate for want of people to cultivate them, while the patricians purchased others from which the proprietors were expelled in consequence of inability to pay the assessments. Individuals now possessed enormous estates, immense wealth, and armies of slaves. people of Campania were enslaved. The influence of particular families had now become so great, that they were courted by the towns and cities to be their protectors before their masters of the Senate.

The

With the change in the physical condition of the people, there was a corresponding one in their moral and intellectual condition. The great mass having sunk to barbarous rudeness, bloody gladiatorial games and combats of wild beasts took the place of dramatic representations, while the few were becoming daily more refined and fastidious. The Scipios, Metellus, Appius, and others, in their town and country houses, formed courts around themselves. All the arts were exercised-all the sciences taught by slaves in such houses; all departments of service had their class of functionaries; the upper ranks became highly accomplished, while the mass enjoyed "spectacles of cruel triumph; exhibitions of wailing lords and princes, and thousands of unfortunate captives; interminable lines of treasure-wagons, and slaves who carried the world's spoils, in crowded procession, following the cars of their generals: wild beast baiting, and conflicts of gladiators." To maintain immense armies, and to keep the people of Rome amused and fed, required immense revenues. Those revenues were farmed out, and the farmers did not fail to extract the largest possible contributions from the unfortunates subjected to their power.*

The third Punic war and the destruction of Carthage followed, with a vast increase of wealth. Bread was delivered at one-fourth of its cost. Festivals and games became more magnificent. Poverty and idleness abounded, and complaints of debt and of usury were universal, while imposts and revenue ruined the provinces thus obliged to support the expenses of Rome. The great men appropriated the public property, regardless of the rights of the occupants.†

Cultivation was in a great degree abandoned to slaves. The people of Rome, accustomed to be supported out of the contributions of the provinces, saw with jealousy their neighbours,

In relation to this period, M. Guizot says, (History of Civilization, p. 14,) "Take Rome, for example, in the splendid days of the republic, at the close of the second Punic war; the moment of her greatest virtues, when she was rapidly advancing to the empire of the world—when her social condition was evidently improving." The reader will judge of the accuracy of this view.

"One of the grievances bitterly complained of by the Gracchi, and all the patriots of their age, was that, while a soldier was serving against the enemy, his powerful neighbour, who coveted his small estate, ejected his wife and children." -Niebuhr, vol. ii., p. 111.

compelled by oppression at home to abandon their houses and farms, transfer themselves to the city to be partakers in the idleness and in the enjoyments of their masters. A law was passed, forbidding the concourse of aliens to Rome, and re quiring all the Italian towns, from time to time, to recal their citizens. Now ensued the Social war, which cost the lives of 300,000 men, and which was only terminated by admitting all the Italian allies to the rights of citizenship, the effect of which was, that all the people of Italy had an equal right to be maintained out of the contributions of the distant provinces.

From this time the government is purely military. The people, accustomed to live upon the plunder of the conquered provinces, are now prepared to exercise the same control over the patricians that the latter have, in time past, exercised over them. By their aid Marius and Sylla obtain power, and the city. streams with patrician blood. The state passes under the control of Cæsar and Pompey, Antony and Octavius, Tiberius and Nero, Caligula, Commodus and Heliogabalus. With every step in the extension of the empire, there is found increased necessity for permitting the populace of Rome to live in idleness upon the spoils of war. With the deterioration of their physical condition there is a constant downward tendency in their moral condition, until vice and profligacy reign paramount throughout the whole vast empire, and political rights, whether of the people or of the patricians, are totally forgotten.

At no time during the existence of Rome was there any tendency to an equality of rights, or to an improvement of the political condition of the mass of the people, except under Servius Tullius, and in the half century which preceded the invasion of the Gauls. Those are the periods when peace existed, and consequently those which make least figure in history. Many others are marked by a more rapid increase of wealth, the spoils of conquest; but such wealth produces, as has been shown in the case of Athens, a very different effect. The people were then enabled to apply their powers advantageously to production; and every increase in the productive power is attended by an improvement in the physical and moral condition of the whole people, and a constant approach to equality of political condition. Every increase in the power of plundering

others is attended by a deterioration in the physical and moral condition of all classes of a community, and by a constantly increasing difference of political condition, enabling the few to trample upon the many, until the people who have thus rendered themselves slaves, desirous to throw off the yoke of their masters, are ready to follow any Marius, or Sylla, or Sertorius, who will grant them revenge for past injuries and enable them to pass from a situation in which they are the objects of plunder, to another in which they can become themselves the plunderers.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH ON THE POLITICAL CONDI. TION OF THE PEOPLE OF ITALY AND SPAIN.

THE middle of the tenth century found Italy divided into a vast number of small territories, the possession and control of which were the object of ceaseless wars. The nominal sovereign was Berenger II., but his rights were disputed by his nobles, and his territories were invaded and ravaged by Hungarians and Saracens. The only law recognised was that of force. The higher nobility tyrannized over the people and the lesser nobility, who looked in vain to the crown for protection. With the re-establishment of the empire by Otho the Great,* we find a new state of things. Order was established, and the people were enabled to apply their labours productively. Of 41 years that Otho and his successors of the house of Saxony wore the imperial crown, they were more than 25 years absent from Italy, and during that period no tribute was imposed, and no levies of men were required for the service of the empire. The consequence was a great increase of wealth. Previous to the reign of Otho the cities were poor, as is shown by the nature of the commerce maintained by them with the Venitians. Before the middle of the following century they had accumulated large capitals, and their manufacturers were already the rivals of those who had so recently been their masters.† Under these circumstances it is not extraordinary that we should find them gradually establishing for themselves, without tumult, and without even the form of charters from the sovereign, municipal institutions, and freeing themselves from the control of the counts, or bishops, who had been accustomed to rule over them. The commencement of the eleventh century was marked by some disturbances, in consequence of the attempt of the Mar

* A. D. 961.

+ Sismondi, tom. i., p. 385.