Sullan constitution of the community bore the stamp of finality.
But the bitterest feature of this bitter time was that even hope
and effort failed the clear-seeing patriot. The sun of freedom
with all its endless store of blessings was constantly drawing
nearer to its setting, and the twilight was settling over the
very world that was still so brilliant. It was no accidental
catastrophe which patriotism and genius might have warded off;
it was ancient social evils--at the bottom of all, the ruin of
the middle class by the slave proletariate--that brought destruction
on the Roman commonwealth. The most sagacious statesman was in the
plight of the physician to whom it is equally painful to prolong or
to abridge the agony of his patient. Beyond doubt it was the
better for the interests of Rome, the more quickly and thoroughly
a despot set aside all remnants of the ancient free constitution,
and invented new forms and expressions for the moderate measure
of human prosperity for which in absolutism there is room: the
intrinsic advantage, which belonged to monarchy under the given
circumstances as compared with any oligarchy, lay mainly in the
very circumstance that such a despotism, energetic in pulling
down and energetic in building up, could never be exercised by
a collegiate board. But such calm considerations do not mould
history; it is not reason it is passion alone, that builds for
the future. The Romans had just to wait and to see how long their
commonwealth would continue unable to live and unable to die, and
whether it would ultimately find its master and, so far as might
be possible, its regenerator, in a man of mighty gifts, or would
collapse in misery and weakness.

Finances of the State

It remains that we should notice the economic and social relations
of the period before us, so far as we have not already done so.

Italian Revenues

The finances of the state were from the commencement of this
epoch substantially dependent on the revenues from the provinces.
In Italy the land-tax, which had always occurred there merely as
an extraordinary impost by the side of the ordinary domanial and
other revenues, had not been levied since the battle of Pydna,
so that absolute freedom from land-tax began to be regarded as a
constitutional privilege of the Roman landowner. The royalties of
the state, such as the salt monopoly(5) and the right of coinage,
were not now at least, if ever at all, treated as sources