ion which, by their own
efforts, they could not withstand. We should find the same officials
preaching against race suicide, extravagant living, and evasion of public
duties, and imposing penalties and restrictions in the most autocratic
fashion on men of high and low degree alike who failed to adopt the
official standards of conduct. We should read of laws enacted in the same
spirit, laws restricting the number of guests that might be entertained on
a single occasion, and prescribing penalties for guests and host alike, if
the cost of a dinner exceeded the statutory limit. All this belongs to the
early stage of paternal government. The motives were praiseworthy, even if
the results were futile.

With the advent of the Gracchi, toward the close of the second century
before our era, moral considerations become less noticeable, and
paternalism takes on a more philanthropic and political character. We see
this change reflected in the land laws and the corn laws. To take up first
the free distribution of land by the state, in the early days of the
Republic colonies of citizens were founded in the newly conquered
districts of Italy to serve as garrisons on the frontier. It was a fair
bargain between the citizen and the state. He received land, the state,
protection. But with Tiberius Gracchus a change comes in. His colonists
were to be settled in peaceful sections of Italy; they were to receive
land solely because of their poverty. This was socialism or state
philanthropy. Like the agrarian bill of Tiberius, the corn law of Gaius
Gracchus, which provided for the sale of grain below the market price, was
a paternal measure inspired in part by sympathy for the needy. The
political element is clear in both cases also. The people who were thus
favored by assignments of land and of food naturally supported the leaders
who assisted them. Perhaps the extensive building of roads which Gaius
Gracchus carried on should be mentioned in this connection. The ostensible
purpose of these great highways, perhaps their primary purpose, was to
develop Italy and to facilitate communication between different parts of
the peninsula, but a large number of men was required for their
construction, and Gaius Gracchus may well have taken the matter up, partly
for the purpose of furnishing work to the unemployed. Out of these small
beginnings developed the socialistic policy of later times. By the middle
of the first century B.C., it is said that there