orces which were working its destruction, at
the expense of destroying those from which it should have gained its
strength. The stability of every state rests ultimately on the wealth
and character of its citizens, and any government which exhausts the
one and degrades the other in an effort to maintain its own unlimited
power has its days numbered. Under the despotic rule of the later
emperors the municipalities had lost all their power, though in theory
their rights were unassailed. The _curia_ could elect its magistrates
as of old, and these magistrates could legislate for the _municipium_,
but by a single word the imperial delegate could annul the choice of
the one and the acts of the other.

The economic condition of the people amounted to little short of
bankruptcy; the possession of wealth, in landed property especially,
having become but a burden to be avoided, and a source of exaction
rather than of satisfaction to the owner. The inequalities of burdens
and of rank were great. The citizens were divided into three classes:
(1) the privileged classes, (2) the Curials, (3) the common people.
The first, freely speaking, were those who had in a manner succeeded
in detaching themselves from the interests of the _municipium_ to
which they belonged; such were the members of the Senate, including
all with the indefinite title of _clarissimi_, the soldiers, the
clergy, the public magistrates as distinguished from the municipal
officers. The second consisted of all citizens of a town, whether
natives--_municipes_--or settlers--_incolae_--who possessed landed
property of more than twenty-five _jugera_, and did not belong to any
privileged class: both these classes were hereditary. The third, of
all free citizens whose poverty debarred them from belonging to either
of the preceding divisions. On the second of these classes, the
Curials, fell all the grinding burdens of the state, the executing of
municipal duties, and the exactions of the central government.

It is not necessary for me to trace here the development of that
financial policy which resulted in the ruin, I may say the
annihilation of this order. Suffice it to say that it formed the
capital fund of the government which exhausted it, and when the source
of supply was destroyed, production ceased, and with it, of course,
all means of governmental support. Where the extinction of this
"middle class" touches the point of our inquiry is in affording an
explanation