acter of the Roman people was molded
into that form of strength and energy, which threw back Hannibal to the
coasts of Africa, and in half a century more made them masters of the
Mediterranean shore.

There can be no doubt that the wars that followed the expulsion of the
Tarquins, with the loss of territory that accompanied them, must have
reduced all orders of men at Rome to great distress. But those who most
suffered were the plebeians. The plebeians at that time consisted
entirely of landholders, great and small, and husbandmen, for in those
times the practice of trades and mechanical arts was considered unworthy
of a freeborn man. Some of the plebeian families were as wealthy as any
among the patricians; but the mass of them were petty yeoman, who lived
on the produce of their small farm, and were solely dependent for a
living on their own limbs, their own thrift and industry. Most of them
lived in the villages and small towns, which in those times were thickly
sprinkled over the slopes of the Campagna.

The patricians, on the other hand, resided chiefly within the city. If
slaves were few as yet, they had the labor of their clients available to
till their farms; and through their clients also they were enabled to
derive a profit from the practice of trading and crafts, which
personally neither they nor the plebeians would stoop to pursue. Besides
these sources of profit, they had at this time the exclusive use of the
public land, a subject on which we shall have to speak more at length
hereafter. At present, it will be sufficient to say, that the public
land now spoken of had been the crown land or regal domain, which on
the expulsion of the kings had been forfeited to the state. The
patricians being in possession of all actual power, engrossed possession
of it, and seem to have paid a very small quit-rent to the treasury for
this great advantage.

Besides this, the necessity of service in the army, or militia--as it
might more justly be called--acted very differently on the rich
landholder and the small yeoman. The latter, being called out with sword
and spear for the summer's campaign, as his turn came round, was obliged
to leave his farm uncared for, and his crop could only be reaped by the
kind aid of neighbors; whereas the rich proprietor, by his clients or
his hired laborers, could render the required military service without
robbing his land of his own labor. Moreover, the territory of Rome was
so narrow,