mony of Rome in the territories of the
Mediterranean rested not least on the strictness of her military
discipline and her administration of justice. Undoubtedly she was
still, on the whole, at that time infinitely superior in these
respects to the Hellenic, Phoenician, and Oriental states, which were
without exception thoroughly disorganized; nevertheless grave abuses
were already occurring in Rome. We have previously(20) pointed out
how the wretched character of the commanders-in-chief--and that not
merely in the case of demagogues chosen perhaps by the opposition,
like Gaius Flaminius and Gaius Varro, but of men who were good
aristocrats--had already in the third Macedonian war imperilled the
weal of the state. And the mode in which justice was occasionally
administered is shown by the scene in the camp of the consul Lucius
Quinctius Flamininus at Placentia (562). To compensate a favourite
youth for the gladiatorial games of the capital, which through his
attendance on the consul he had missed the opportunity of seeing, that
great lord had ordered a Boian of rank who had taken refuge in the
Roman camp to be summoned, and had killed him at a banquet with his
own hand. Still worse than the occurrence itself, to which various
parallels might be adduced, was the fact that the perpetrator was not
brought to trial; and not only so, but when the censor Cato on account
of it erased his name from the roll of the senate, his fellow-senators
invited the expelled to resume his senatorial stall in the theatre
--he was, no doubt, the brother of the liberator of the Greeks,
and one of the most powerful coterie-leaders in the senate.

As to the Management of Finances

The financial system of the Roman community also retrograded rather
than advanced during this epoch. The amount of their revenues,
indeed, was visibly on the increase. The indirect taxes--there were
no direct taxes in Rome--increased in consequence of the enlargement
of the Roman territory, which rendered it necessary, for example, to
institute new customs-offices along the Campanian and Bruttian coasts
at Puteoli, Castra (Squillace), and elsewhere, in 555 and 575. The
same reason led to the new salt-tariff of 550 fixing the scale of
prices at which salt was to be sold in the different districts of
Italy, as it was no longer possible to furnish salt at one and the
same price to the Roman burgesses now scattered throughout the land;
but, as the Roman governmen