and important part in the society of the day. In
Rome at least the age was one of a low tone in morals, and divorces were
of common occurrence. At the same time social intercourse was
characterized by a high degree of urbanity--the good manners which mark the
society of cultured men.

*The plebs.* Of the life of the plebs who thronged the high tenement
houses and narrow streets of Rome we know very little. But until the
Assembly was overawed or superseded by armed forces the city populace
could not be ignored by the upper classes. Their votes must be courted by
magnificent displays at the public games, by entertainments and largesses
of all kinds, and care must be taken to provide them with food to prevent
their becoming a menace to the public peace. This latter problem was
solved as we have seen after the time of Caius Gracchus by providing them
with a monthly allowance of corn, at first at a greatly reduced price, but
after 57 B. C. gratuitously. Julius Caesar found about 320,000 persons
sharing in this distribution, and reduced the number to 150,000 male
citizens. The city mob thus became to a certain degree state pensioners,
and placed a heavy burden on the treasury. There can be no doubt that the
ranks of the urban proletariat were swelled by peasants who had lost their
holdings in the course of the civil wars and the settlements of discharged
soldiers on Italian soil, but the chief increase came from the manumission
of slaves, who as _liberti_ or freedmen became Roman citizens. Sulla's
10,000 Cornelii were of this number. The influx of these heterogeneous
elements radically changed the character of the city populace which could
no longer claim to be mainly of Roman and Italian stock but embraced
representatives of all races of the Mediterranean world. The population
was further augmented by the great numbers of slaves attached to the
houses of the wealthy or engaged in various industrial occupations for
their masters or others who hired their services.

In the rural districts of Italy the plantation system had been widely
extended and agriculture and grazing were in the main carried on by slave
labor. Yet the free farmers had by no means entirely disappeared and free
labor was employed even on the _latifundia_ themselves. The discharged
veterans who were provided with lands attest the presence of considerable
numbers of free landholders.

*Religion.* In religion this period witnessed a striking decline of
inter