he chief Italian roads,(23) and for the
construction of public buildings. Perhaps the most important of the
building operations in the capital, known to belong to this period,
was the great repair and extension of the network of sewers throughout
the city, contracted for probably in 570, for which 24,000,000
sesterces (240,000 pounds) were set apart at once, and to which it may
be presumed that the portions of the -cloacae- still extant, at least
in the main, belong. To all appearance however, even apart from the
severe pressure of war, this period was inferior to the last section
of the preceding epoch in respect of public buildings; between 482 and
607 no new aqueduct was constructed at Rome. The treasure of the
state, no doubt, increased; the last reserve in 545, when: they found
themselves under the necessity of laying hands on it, amounted only to
164,000 pounds (4000 pounds of gold);(24) whereas a short time after
the close of this period (597) close on 860,000 pounds in precious
metals were stored in the treasury. But, when we take into account
the enormous extraordinary revenues which in the generation after the
close of the Hannibalic war came into the Roman treasury, the latter
sum surprises us rather by its smallness than by its magnitude. So
far as with the extremely meagre statements before us it is allowable
to speak of results, the finances of the Roman state exhibit doubtless
an excess of income over expenditure, but are far from presenting a
brilliant result as a whole.

Italian Subjects
Passive Burgesses

The change in the spirit of the government was most distinctly
apparent in the treatment of the Italian and extra-Italian subjects of
the Roman community. Formerly there had been distinguished in Italy
the ordinary, and the Latin, allied communities, the Roman burgesses
-sine suffragio- and the Roman burgesses with the full franchise. Of
these four classes the third was in the course of this period almost
completely set aside, inasmuch as the course which had been earlier
taken with the communities of passive burgesses in Latium and Sabina,
was now applied also to those of the former Volscian territory, and
these gradually--the last perhaps being in the year 566 Arpinum,
Fundi, and Formiae--obtained full burgess-rights. In Campania Capua
along with a number of minor communities in the neighbourhood was
broken up in consequence of its revolt from Rome in the Hannibalic
war. Although some fe