of the state, was in this way systematically ruined, and the
welfare of the nation as a whole was sacrificed in the most shameful
fashion to the interests of the essentially unproductive population
of the capital, to which in fact bread could never become too cheap.
Nothing perhaps evinces so clearly as this, how wretched was the
constitution and how incapable was the administration of this
so-called golden age of the republic. Any representative system,
however meagre, would have led at least to serious complaints and to
a perception of the seat of the evil; but in those primary assemblies
of the burgesses anything was listened to sooner than the warning
voice of a foreboding patriot. Any government that deserved the name
would of itself have interfered; but the mass of the Roman senate
probably with well-meaning credulity regarded the low prices of grain
as a real blessing for the people, and the Scipios and Flamininuses
had, forsooth, more important things to do--to emancipate the Greeks,
and to exercise the functions of republican kings. So the ship drove
on unhindered towards the breakers.

Decay of the Farmers

When the small holdings ceased to yield any substantial clear return,
the farmers were irretrievably ruined, and the more so that they
gradually, although more slowly than the other classes, lost the moral
tone and frugal habits of the earlier ages of the republic It was
merely a question of time, how rapidly the hides of the Italian
farmers would, by purchase or by resignation, become merged in
the larger estates.

Culture of Oil and Wine, and Rearing of Cattle

The landlord was better able to maintain himself than the farmer.
The former produced at a cheaper rate than the latter, when, instead
of letting his land according to the older system to petty temporary
lessees, he caused it according to the newer system to be cultivated
by his slaves. Accordingly, where this course had not been adopted
even at an earlier period,(12) the competition of Sicilian slave-corn
compelled the Italian landlord to follow it, and to have the work
performed by slaves without wife or child instead of families of free
labourers. The landlord, moreover, could hold his ground better
against competitors by means of improvements or changes in
cultivation, and he could content himself with a smaller return from
the soil than the farmer, who wanted capital and intelligence and who
merely had what was requisite for his sub