Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/518

 512 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. fonnd that twelve thousand of them had obtained it tliroiigli fraud. Ordinarily, Rome shut her eyes, knowing that by this means lier ])opulation increased, and that the losses of war were thus repaired. But the Latin cities suffered ; their richest inhabitants became Roman citizens, and Latiuin was impoverished. The taxes, from which the richest were exempt as Roman citizens, became more and more burdensome, and the contingent of soldiers that had to be furnished to Rome was every year more difficult to fill up. The larger the number of those who obtained the Roman franchise, the harder was the lot of those who had not that right. There came a time when the Latin cities demanded that this fran- chise should cease to be a privilege. The Italian cities, which, having been conquered two centuries before, were in nearly the same condition as those of Latium, and also saw their richest inhabitants abandon them to become Romans, demanded for themselves the Roman franchise. The fate of subjects and allies had become all the less supportable at this period, from the fact that the Roman democracy was then agitating the great question of the agrarian laws. Now, the principle of all these laws was, that neither subject nor ally could be an owner of the soil, except by a formal act of the city, and that the greater part of the Italian lands be- longed to the republic. One party demanded, there- fore, that these lands, which were nearly all occupied by Italians, should be taken back by the state, and dis- tributed among the poor of Rome. Thus the Italians were menaced with general ruin. They felt keenly the need of civil rights, and they could only come into possession of these by becoming Roman citizens. The war that followed was called the social war/