The Evolution of States Part 10

[Footnote 168: E. Meyer (_Geschichte des Alterthums_, ii, 518), alleges a common misconception as to the _ager publicus_ being made a subject of cla.s.s strife; but does not make the matter at all clearer. Cp. Niebuhr, _Lectures on the History of Rome_, Eng. tr. 1-vol. ed. pp. 153-54, 407, 503.]

[Footnote 169: Shuckburgh, _History of Rome_, pp. 93, 94. Cp. Long, _Decline of the Roman Republic_, ch. xii, and Pelham, pp. 187-89, as to the frauds of the rich in the matter of the public lands.]

[Footnote 170: W.T. Arnold, _Roman Provincial Administration_, 1879, p.

26.]

[Footnote 171: Finlay, _History of Greece_, Tozer's ed. i, 39.]

[Footnote 172: When Julius Caesar abolished the public revenue from the lands of Campania by dividing them among 20,000 colonists, the only Italian revenue left was the small duty on the sale of slaves (Cicero, _Ep. ad Attic.u.m_, ii, 16).]

[Footnote 173: _Ep. ad Attic.u.m_, iv, 15 (16).]

[Footnote 174: Cp. Niebuhr, _Lectures on Roman History_, Eng. tr. 1-vol.

ed. pp. 227, 449; Gibbon, Bohn ed. iii, 404; v, 74-75.]

[Footnote 175: _Orat. pro M. Fonteio_, v. Cp. Long, _in loc._ (_Orationes_, 1855, ii, 167).]

[Footnote 176: Dr. Cunningham, preserving the conception of Rome as an ent.i.ty with choice and volition, inclines to see a necessary self-protection in most Roman wars; yet his pages show clearly enough that the moneyed cla.s.ses were the active power. He distinguishes (p.

161) "public neglect" (of conquered peoples) from "public oppression."

But the public neglect was simply a matter of the control of the exploiting cla.s.s, who were the effective "public" for foreign affairs.

Compare his admissions as to their forcing of wars and their control of justice, pp. 163, 164.]

[Footnote 177: The fullest English account of the matter is given by Long, _Decline of the Roman Republic_, iv, 423-27, following Savigny.

Cp. Plutarch's account of the doings of the _publicani_ in Asia (_Lucullus_, cc. 7, 20). Lucullus gave deadly offence at Rome by his check on their extortions, as P. Rutilius Rufus had done before him (Pelham, _Outlines of Roman History_, 1893, pp. 198, 283; Ferrero, i, 183). The lowest rate of interest charged by the _publicani_ seems to have been 12 per cent. (Niebuhr, _Lectures_, 1-vol. ed. p. 449). We shall find the same rates current in Renaissance Italy.]

[Footnote 178: Cp. R. Pohlmann, _Die Uebervolkerung der antiken Grossstadte_, 1884, pp. 14-15, 29-30. Prof. Ferrero (_Greatness and Decline of Rome_, Eng. tr. i, 123-27; ii, 131-36) affirms a restoration of Italian "prosperity" from 80 B.C. onwards, by way first of a general cultivation of the vine and the olive by means of Oriental slaves used to such culture, and later of slave manufactures in the towns. But the evidence falls far short of the proposition. The main items are that about 52 B.C. Italy began to export olive oil, and that certain towns later won repute for pottery, textiles, arms, and so on. On the new agriculture cp. Dureau de la Malle, i, 426-27.]

[Footnote 179: W.W. Carlile, _The Evolution of Modern Money_, 1901, pp.

46, 48.]

[Footnote 180: Cp. M'Culloch, _Essays and Treatises_, 2nd ed. pp. 58-64, and refs.]

[Footnote 181: Cp. Hodgkin, _The Dynasty of Theodosius_, 1889, pp.

19-20. From Severus onwards the silver coinage had in fact become "mere _billon_ money," mostly copper. Carlile, as cited.]

[Footnote 182: On this cp. Pohlmann, _Die Uebervolkerung der antiken Grossstadte_, p.37, and Engel, as there cited.]

[Footnote 183: As to the probable nature of this much-discussed law see Long, _Decline of the Roman Republic_, i, chs. xi and xii. Cp. Niebuhr, _Lect._ 89.]

[Footnote 184: Plutarch, _Tiberius Gracchus_, c. 8.]

[Footnote 185: As Long remarks (i, 171), it does not appear what Tiberius Gracchus proposed to do with the slaves when he had put freemen in their place. Cp. Cunningham, p. 150.]

[Footnote 186: Cp. Pelham, _Outlines_, pp. 191-92; Ferrero, ch. iii.]

[Footnote 187: Robiou et Delaunay, _Les inst.i.tutions de l'ancienne Rome_, 1888, iii, 18.]

[Footnote 188: Cp. Juvenal, iii, 21 _sq._; 162 _sq._]

[Footnote 189: For the history of the practice, see the article "Frumentariae Leges," in Smith's _Dictionary of Antiquities_.]

[Footnote 190: The first step by Gracchus does not seem to have been much resisted (Merivale, _Fall of the Roman Republic_, p. 22; but cp.

Long, _Decline of the Roman Republic_, i, 262), such measures having been for various reasons resorted to at times in the past (Pliny, _Hist.

Nat._ xviii, 1; Livy, ii, 34); but in the reaction which followed, the process was for a time restricted (Merivale, p. 34).]

[Footnote 191: It seems to have been he who, as consul, first caused the distribution to be made gratuitous. See Cicero, _ad Attic._ ii, 19, and _De Domo Sua_, cc. 10, 15. The Clodian law, making the distribution gratuitous, was pa.s.sed next year.]

[Footnote 192: Suetonius, _Julius_, c. 41.]

[Footnote 193: Dio Ca.s.sius, xliii, 24.]

[Footnote 194: It must have been the relative dearness of land transport that kept the price of corn so low in Cisalpine Gaul in the time of Polybius, who describes a remarkable abundance (ii, 15).]

[Footnote 195: Suetonius, _Aug._ cc. 40, 41.]

[Footnote 196: _Hist. Nat._ xviii, 7 (6).]

[Footnote 197: Cp. his _Economicus_, chs. 5, 9, 11, 20, etc.]

[Footnote 198: Meyer, _Gesch. des Alterthums_, iii, 682 (-- 379).]

[Footnote 199: Plutarch, _Tiberius Gracchus_, c. 8.]

[Footnote 200: _E.g._, in the provinces of Africa (Gibbon, Bohn ed. iii, 445) and Sicily (Pelham, _Outlines_, p. 121).]

[Footnote 201: Cp. Pliny, as last cited.]

[Footnote 202: The Italians consumed large quant.i.ties of pork, mainly raised in the north (Polybius ii, 15; xii. fr. 1). Aurelian began a pork as well as a wine and oil ration for the Romans (Vopiscus, _Aurelia.n.u.s_, 35, 47); and under Valentinian III the annual consumption in the city of Rome was 3,628,000 lbs., there being then a free distribution to the poor during five months of the year. Gibbon calculates that it sold at less than 2d. per lb. (Bohn ed. iii, 417-18.)]

[Footnote 203: Cp. Spalding, _Italy and the Italian Islands_, i, 372-75, 392, 398; Merivale, _History_, c. 32; ed. 1873, iv, 42; M'Culloch, as cited, pp. 286-92; Finlay, _History of Greece_, i, 43; Gibbon, Bohn ed.

iii, 418; Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Years of the Roman Empire_, 2nd ed. p. 122 and refs.; and Blanqui, _Histoire de l'economie politique_, 2e ed. i, 123, as to the progression of the policy of feeding the populace. Cp. also Suetonius, _in Aug._ c. 42.]

[Footnote 204: There is, however, reason to surmise that the murder of Pertinax was planned, not by the praetorians who did the deed, but by the official and moneyed cla.s.s who detested his reforms. See them specified by Gibbon, ch. iv, _end_.]

[Footnote 205: It is noteworthy that in the United States the New England region, producing neither coal nor iron, neither cotton nor (latterly) wheat, continues to retain a manufacturing primacy as against the South, in virtue of the (in part climatic) industry and skill of its population.]

[Footnote 206: Mommsen, _History of Rome_, Eng. tr. large ed. v, 5 (_Provinces_, vol. i); Gibbon, ch. iii, near end (Bohn ed. i, 104); cp.

Mahaffy, _The Greek World under Roman Sway_, p. 397; Milman, _History of Christianity_, Bk. I, ch. vi; Renan, _Les Apotres_, ed. 1866, p. 312; and Hegewisch, as cited by Finlay (i, 80, _note_), who protests that the favourable view cannot be taken of the state of Greece and Egypt. Mr.

Balfour (_Decadence_, 1908, p. 18) chimes in with Mommsen and the rest.]

[Footnote 207: Cp. Pelham, _Outlines_, p. 473.]

[Footnote 208: Gibbon, ch. xvii; Bohn ed. ii, 194, and _notes_.]

[Footnote 209: Symmachus speaks of a famine about the time of the confiscation of the temple revenues. Ep. x, 54.]

[Footnote 210: Valentinian had resumed those temple revenues which had been restored by Julian, but went no further, though he vetoed the acquisition of legacies by his own church. That Gratian's step was rather financial than fanatical is proved by his having at the same time endowed the pagan rhetors and grammarians as a small religious _quid pro quo_. Beugnot, _Hist. de la destr. du paganisme en occident_, 1835, i, 478.]

[Footnote 211: There was a fresh relapse after Theodoric, in the ruinous wars between Justinian and the Goths and Franks. Revival began in the north under the Lombards, and was stimulated in the south after the revolt of Gregory II against Leo the Iconoclast, which made an end of the payment of Italian tribute to Byzantium. (Gibbon, Bohn ed. v, 127, 372, 377.)]