increasing depopulation
of the cities and the impossibility under such circumstances of
furnishing the fixed contingent, led the Roman government to institute
police-ejections from the capital on a large scale (567, 577). The
measure might be unavoidable, but it was none the less severely felt.
Moreover, the towns laid out by Rome in the interior of Italy began
towards the close of this period to receive instead of Latin rights
the full franchise, which previously had only been given to the
maritime colonies; and the enlargement of the Latin body by the
accession of new communities, which hitherto had gone on so regularly,
thus came to an end. Aquileia, the establishment of which began in
571, was the latest of the Italian colonies of Rome that received
Latin rights; the full franchise was given to the colonies, sent forth
nearly at the same time, of Potentia, Pisaurum, Mutina, Parma, and
Luna (570-577). The reason for this evidently lay in the decline of
the Latin as compared with the Roman franchise. The colonists
conducted to the new settlements were always, and now more than ever,
chosen in preponderating number from the Roman burgesses; and even
among the poorer portion of these there was a lack of people willing,
for the sake even of acquiring considerable material advantages, to
exchange their rights as burgesses for those of the Latin franchise.

Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition

Lastly, in the case of non-burgesses--communities as well as
individuals--admission to the Roman franchise was almost completely
foreclosed. The earlier course incorporating the subject communities
in that of Rome had been dropped about 400, that the Roman burgess
body might not be too much decentralized by its undue extension; and
therefore communities of half-burgesses were instituted.(29) Now
the centralization of the community was abandoned, partly through
the admission of the half-burgess communities to the full franchise,
partly through the accession of numerous more remote burgess-colonies
to its ranks; but the older system of incorporation was not resumed
with reference to the allied communities. It cannot be shown that
after the complete subjugation of Italy even a single Italian
community exchanged its position as an ally for the Roman franchise;
probably none after that date in reality acquired it Even the
transition of individual Italians to the Roman franchise was confined
almost solely to the case of