o more unprofitable way in
which the body of a debtor could be disposed of.

Such being the law of debtor and creditor, it remains to say that the
creditors were chiefly of the patrician caste, and the debtors almost
exclusively of the poorer sort among the plebeians. The patricians were
the creditors, because from their occupancy of the public land, and from
their engrossing the profits to be derived from trade and crafts, they
alone had spare capital to lend. The plebeian yeomen were the debtors,
because their independent position made them, at that time, helpless.
Vassals, clients, serfs, or by whatever name dependents are called, do
not suffer from the ravages of a predatory war like free landholders,
because the loss falls on their lords or patrons. But when the
independent yeoman's crops are destroyed, his cattle "lifted," and his
homestead in ashes, he must himself repair the loss. This was, as we
have said, the condition of many Roman plebeians. To rebuild their
houses and restock their farms they borrowed; the patricians were their
creditors; and the law, instead of protecting the small holders, like
the law of the Hebrews, delivered them over into serfdom or slavery.

Thus the free plebeian population might have been reduced to a state of
mere dependency, and the history of Rome might have presented a
repetition of monotonous severity, like that of Sparta or of Venice.[38]
But it was ordained otherwise. The distress and oppression of the
plebeians led them to demand and to obtain political protectors, by
whose means they were slowly but surely raised to equality of rights and
privileges with their rulers and oppressors. These protectors were the
famous Tribunes of the Plebs. We will now repeat the no less famous
legends by which their first creation was accounted for.

[Footnote 38: A well-known German historian calls the Spartans by the
name of "stunted Romans." There is much resemblance to be traced.]

It was, by the common reckoning, fifteen years after the expulsion of
the Tarquins (B.C. 494), that the plebeians were roused to take the
first step in the assertion of their rights. After the battle of Lake
Regillus, the plebeians had reason to expect some relaxation of the law
of debt, in consideration of the great services they had rendered in the
war. But none was granted. The patrician creditors began to avail
themselves of the severity of the law against their plebeian debtors.
The discontent that fol