-asses- (1 shilling 8 pence or
ten pence). Some years afterwards (558), more than 240,000 bushels of
Sicilian grain were distributed at the latter illusory price in the
capital. In vain Cato inveighed against this shortsighted policy:
the rise of demagogism had a part in it, and these extraordinary, but
presumably very frequent, distributions of grain under the market
price by the government or individual magistrates became the germs of
the subsequent corn-laws. But, even where the transmarine corn did
not reach the consumers in this extraordinary mode, it injuriously
affected Italian agriculture. Not only were the masses of grain which
the state sold off to the lessees of the tenths beyond doubt acquired
under ordinary circumstances by these so cheaply that, when re-sold,
they could be disposed of under the price of production; but it is
probable that in the provinces, particularly in Sicily--in consequence
partly of the favourable nature of the soil, partly of the extent
to which wholesale farming and slave-holding were pursued on the
Carthaginian system(10)--the price of production was in general
considerably lower than in Italy, while the transport of Sicilian and
Sardinian corn to Latium was at least as cheap as, if not cheaper
than, its transport thither from Etruria, Campania, or even northern
Italy. In the natural course of things therefore transmarine corn
could not but flow to the peninsula, and lower the price of the grain
produced there. Under the unnatural disturbance of relations
occasioned by the lamentable system of slave-labour, it would perhaps
have been justifiable to impose a duty on transmarine corn for the
protection of the Italian farmer; but the very opposite course seems
to have been pursued, and with a view to favour the import of
transmarine corn to Italy, a prohibitive system seems to have been
applied in the provinces--for though the Rhodians were allowed to
export a quantity of corn from Sicily by way of special favour, the
export of grain from the provinces must probably, as a rule, have been
free only as regarded Italy, and the transmarine corn must thus have
been monopolized for the benefit of the mother-country.

Prices of Italian Corn

The effects of this system are clearly evident. A year of
extraordinary fertility like 504--when the people of the capital paid
for 6 Roman -modii- (1 1/2 bush.) of spelt not more than 3/5 of a
-denarius- (about 5 pence), and at the same price