ount of this
misalliance expelled from the circle of noble dames and was refused
admission to the common festival of Chastity; and in consequence of
that exclusion separate patrician and plebeian goddesses of Chastity
were thenceforward worshipped in Rome. Doubtless caprices of this
sort were of very little moment, and the better portion of the
clans kept themselves entirely aloof from this miserable policy of
peevishness; but it left behind on both sides a feeling of discontent,
and, while the struggle of the commons against the clans was in itself
a political and even moral necessity, these convulsive efforts to
prolong the strife--the aimless combats of the rear-guard after the
battle had been decided, as well as the empty squabbles as to rank
and standing--needlessly irritated and disturbed the public and
private life of the Roman community.

The Social Distress, and the Attempt to Relieve It

Nevertheless one object of the compromise concluded by the two
portions of the plebs in 387, the abolition of the patriciate, had
in all material points been completely attained. The question next
arises, how far the same can be affirmed of the two positive objects
aimed at in the compromise?--whether the new order of things in
reality checked social distress and established political equality?
The two were intimately connected; for, if economic embarrassments
ruined the middle class and broke up the burgesses into a minority of
rich men and a suffering proletariate, such a state of things would at
once annihilate civil equality and in reality destroy the republican
commonwealth. The preservation and increase of the middle class, and
in particular of the farmers, formed therefore for every patriotic
statesman of Rome a problem not merely important, but the most
important of all. The plebeians, moreover, recently called to take
part in the government, greatly indebted as they were for their new
political rights to the proletariate which was suffering and expecting
help at their hands, were politically and morally under special
obligation to attempt its relief by means of government measures,
so far as relief was by such means at all attainable.

The Licinian Agrarian Laws

Let us first consider how far any real relief was contained in that
part of the legislation of 387 which bore upon the question. That
the enactment in favour of the free day-labourers could not possibly
accomplish its object--namely, to check the sy