closed,
distress and despair could not but spread with fearful rapidity among
the agricultural middle class.

Relations of the Social Question to the Question between Orders

The distinction between rich and poor, which arose out of these
relations, by no means coincided with that between the clans and the
plebeians. If far the greater part of the patricians were wealthy
landholders, opulent and considerable families were, of course,
not wanting among the plebeians; and as the senate, which even then
perhaps consisted in greater part of plebeians, had assumed the
superintendence of the finances to the exclusion even of the patrician
magistrates, it was natural that all those economic advantages, for
which the political privileges of the nobility were abused, should go
to the benefit of the wealthy collectively; and the pressure fell the
more heavily upon the commons, since those who were the ablest and
the most capable of resistance were by their admission to the senate
transferred from the class of the oppressed to the ranks of
the oppressors.

But this state of things prevented the political position of the
aristocracy from being permanently tenable. Had it possessed the
self-control to govern justly and to protect the middle class--as
individual consuls from its ranks endeavoured, but from the reduced
position of the magistracy were unable effectually, to do--it might
have long maintained itself in sole possession of the offices of
state. Had it been willing to admit the wealthy and respectable
plebeians to full equality of rights--possibly by connecting the
acquisition of the patriciate with admission into the senate--both
might long have governed and speculated with impunity. But neither
of these courses was adopted; the narrowness of mind and short-
sightedness, which are the proper and inalienable privileges of
all genuine patricianism, were true to their character also in Rome,
and rent the powerful commonwealth asunder in useless, aimless,
and inglorious strife.

Secession to the Sacred Mount

The immediate crisis however proceeded not from those who felt the
disabilities of their order, but from the distress of the farmers.
The rectified annals place the political revolution in the year 244,
the social in the years 259 and 260; they certainly appear to have
followed close upon each other, but the interval was probably longer.
The strict enforcement of the law of debt--so runs the story--excited
the