Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/322

 302 THE DECLINE AND FALL who impiously doubt ov deny the existence of a celestial power." state and In populous cities which are the seat of commerce and manu- the ^opVof factures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their sub- sistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are com- monly the most prolific, the most useful, and in that sense the most respectable part of the community. But the j)lebeians of Rome, who disdained such sedentary and servile arts, had l)een oppi-essed from the earliest times, by the weight of debt and usury ; and the husbandman, during the teim of his military service, was obliged to abandon the cultivation of his farm.^i The lands of Italy, which had been originally divided among the families of free and indigent proprietors, were insensibly pur- chased or usurped by the avarice of the nobles ; and in the age which preceded the fall of the republic it was computed that only two thousand citizens were possessed of any independent sub- stance.^- Yet, as long as the people bestowed, by their suffrages, the honours of the state, the command of the legions, and the administration of wealthy provinces, their conscious pride alle- viated, in some measure, the hardships of poverty ; and their wants were seasonably supplied by the ambitious liberality of the candidates, who aspired to secure a venal majority in the thirty-five tribes, or the hundred and ninety-three centuries, of Rome. But, when the prodigal commons had imprudently alienated not only the use, but the inheritance, of power, they sunk, under the reign of the Caesars, into a vile and wretched populace which must, in a few generations, have been totally ex- tinguished, if it had not been continually recruited by the manu- mission of slaves and the influx of strangers. As early as the time of Hadrian it was the just complaint of the ingenuous natives that the capital had attracted the vices of the universe and the manners of the most opposite nations. The intemper- ance of the Gauls, the cunning and levity of the Greeks, the savage obstinacy of the Egyptians and Jews, the servile temper 51 The histories of Livy (see particularly vi. 36) are full of the extortions of the rich, and the sufferings of the poor debtors. The melancholy story of a brave old soldier (Dionys. Hal. 1. vi. c. 26, p. 347, edit. Hudson, and Livy, ii. 23) must have been frequently repeated in those primitive times, which have been so undeservedly praised. 52Non esse in civitate duo millia hominum qui rem haberent. Cicero, Offic. ii. 21, and Comment. Paul. Manut. in edit. Graev. This vagU'" computation was made A. u.c. 649, in a speech of the tribune Philippus, and it was his object, as well as that of the Gracchi (see Plutarch), to deplore, and perhaps to exaggerate, the misery of the common people.