themselves
at the head of bands of revolted slaves,(31) and rudely reminded
the public that the transition is easy from the haunts of
fashionable debauchery to the robber's cave. It is no wonder,
that that financial tower of Babel, with its foundation not purely
economic but borrowed from the political ascendency of Rome,
tottered at every serious political crisis nearly in the same
way as our very similar fabric of a paper currency. The great
financial crisis, which in consequence of the Italo-Asiatic
commotions of 664 f. set in upon the Roman capitalist-class,
the bankruptcy of the state and of private persons, the general
depreciation of landed property and of partnership-shares, can no
longer be traced out in detail; but their general nature and their
importance are placed beyond doubt by their results--the murder of
the praetor by a band of creditors,(32) the attempt to eject from
the senate all the senators not free of debt,(33) the renewal of
the maximum of interest by Sulla,(34) the cancelling of 75 per cent
of all debts by the revolutionary party.(35) The consequence of
this system was naturally general impoverishment and depopulation
in the provinces, whereas the parasitic population of migratory
or temporarily settled Italians was everywhere on the increase.
In Asia Minor 80,000 men of Italian origin are said to have perished
in one day.(36) How numerous they were in Delos, is evident from
the tombstones still extant on the island and from the statement
that 20,000 foreigners, mostly Italian merchants, were put to death
there by command of Mithradates.(37) In Africa the Italians were
so many, that even the Numidian town of Cirta could be defended
mainly by them against Jugurtha.(38) Gaul too, it is said, was
filled with Roman merchants; in the case of Spain alone--perhaps
not accidentally--no statements of this sort are found. In Italy
itself, on the other hand, the condition of the free population
at this epoch had on the whole beyond doubt retrograded. To this
result certainly the civil wars essentially contributed, which,
according to statements of a general kind and but littletrustworthy,
are alleged to have swept away from 100,000 to 150,000 of the Roman
burgesses and 300,000 of the Italian population generally; but still
worse was the effect of the economic ruin of the middle class, and of
the boundless extent of the mercantile emigration which induced a great
portion of the Italian youth to