that community, or Roman citizens, could[24]
buy or inherit. This restriction upon free competition, by giving the
advantage to Roman citizens, was in itself sufficient to ruin the
prosperity of every Italian town. This law operated continually and
unobservedly and resulted in placing,[25] year by year, a still larger
quantity of the soil of Italy in the hands of the Roman aristocracy.
In order to palliate the evils of conquest or at least to hide their
conditions of servitude, the Romans had accorded to a part of the Italians
the title of allies, and to others the privileges of _municipia_.[26] These
privileges were combined in a very skillful manner in the interest of Rome,
but this skill did not hinder the people from perceiving that they depended
upon the mere wish of the conquerors and consequently were not rights, but
merely favors to be revoked at will. The Latini, who had been the first
people conquered by Rome and who had almost always remained faithful,
enjoyed under the name of _jus Latii_ considerable privileges. They held in
great[27] part the civil and political rights of Roman citizens. They were
able by special services individually to become Roman citizens and thus
to obtain the full _jus Romanum_. There were other peoples who, although
strangers to Latium, had been admitted, by reason of their services[28] to
Rome, to participate in the benefits of the _jus Latii_. The other peoples,
admitted merely to the _jus Italicum_, did not enjoy any of the civil or
political rights of Roman citizens, nor any of the privileges of Latin[29]
allies; at best they kept some souvenirs of their departed independence in
their interior administration, but otherwise were considered as subjects
of Rome. And yet it was for the aggrandizement of this city that they shed
their blood upon all the fields of battle which it pleased Rome to choose;
it was for the glory and extension of the Roman power that they gained
these conquests in which they had no share. Some who had attempted to
regain their independence were not even accorded the humble privileges of
the other people of Italy, but were reduced to the state of prefectures.
These were treated as provinces and governed by prefects or proconsuls
sent[30] out from Rome. Such were Capua, Bruttium, Lucania, the greater
part of Samnium, and Cisalpine Gaul, which country, indeed, was not even
considered as a part of Italy. Those who had submitted without resistance
to the domination