ed with horses and arms, and that they should be allowed
far greater freedom of movement than was granted to the slaves
on arable estates.

Results
Competition of Transmarine Corn

In order to form some estimate of the economic results of this system
of husbandry, we must consider the state of prices, and particularly
the prices of grain at this period. On an average these were
alarmingly low; and that in great measure through the fault of the
Roman government, which in this important question was led into the
most fearful blunders not so much by its short-sightedness, as by an
unpardonable disposition to favour the proletariate of the capital at
the expense of the farmers of Italy. The main question here was that
of the competition between transmarine and Italian corn. The grain
which was delivered by the provincials to the Roman government,
sometimes gratuitously, sometimes for a moderate compensation, was in
part applied by the government to the maintenance of the Roman
official staff and of the Roman armies on the spot, partly given up to
the lessees of the -decumae- on condition of their either paying a sum
of money for it or of their undertaking to deliver certain quantities
of grain at Rome or wherever else it should be required. From the
time of the second Macedonian war the Roman armies were uniformly
supported by transmarine corn, and, though this tended to the benefit
of the Roman exchequer, it cut off the Italian farmer from an
important field of consumption for his produce. This however was
the least part of the mischief. The government had long, as was
reasonable, kept a watchful eye on the price of grain, and, when there
was a threatening of dearth, had interfered by well-timed purchases
abroad; and now, when the corn-deliveries of its subjects brought into
its hands every year large quantities of grain--larger probably than
were needed in times of peace--and when, moreover, opportunities were
presented to it of acquiring foreign grain in almost unlimited
quantity at moderate prices, there was a natural temptation to glut
the markets of the capital with such grain, and to dispose of it at
rates which either in themselves or as compared with the Italian rates
were ruinously low. Already in the years 551-554, and in the first
instance apparently at the suggestion of Scipio, 6 -modii- (1 1/2
bush.) of Spanish and African wheat were sold on public account to the
citizens of Rome at 24 and even at 12