ROME MIDDLE PERIOD 



XXII. INTRODUCTORY GENERAL VIEW. 



The overthrow of Carthage put an end to a period of terrible 

 anxiety to the Roman government, and the first feeling was naturally 

 one of relief. But the sufferings of the war-weary masses had pro- 

 duced an intense longing for peace and rest. It might be true that a 

 Macedonian war was necessary in the interest of the state: but it 

 was only with great difficulty that the Senate overcame opposition to 

 a forward policy. For the sufferings of the people, more particularly 

 the farmers, were not at an end. The war indemnities from Carthage 

 might refill the empty treasury, and enable the state to discharge its 

 public obligations to contractors and other creditors. So far well : 

 but receipts of this kind did little or nothing towards meeting the 

 one vital need, the reestablishment of disjplaced peasants on the land. 

 The most accessible districts, generally the best suited for tillage, had 

 no doubt suffered most in the disturbances of war ; and the future 

 destinies of Rome and Italy were depending on the form that revival 

 of agriculture would take. The race of small farmers had been 

 hitherto the backbone of Roman power. But the wars of the last 

 two generations had brought Rome into contact with an agricultural^ 

 system of a very different character. Punic agriculture 1 was industrial : 

 that is, conducted for profit on a large scale and directed by purely 

 economic considerations. Cheap production was the first thing. As 

 the modern large farmer relies on machinery, so his ancient predecessor 

 relied on domesticated animals ; chiefly on the animal with hands, the 

 human slave. 



It is to be borne in mind that during the second Punic war the 

 Roman practice of employing contractors for all manner of state 

 services (publica) had been greatly developed. Companies of publicani 

 had played an active part and had thriven on their enterprises. These 

 companies were probably already, as they certainly were in later 

 times, great employers of slaves. In any case they represented a 

 purely industrial and commercial view of life, the * economic ' as 

 opposed to the 'national' set of principles Their numbers were 

 beyond all doubt greater than they had ever been before. With such 

 men the future interests of the state would easily be obscured by 

 immediate private interests, selfish appetite being whetted by the 



1 See the precept of Mago cited by Pliny Nffnvui 35. 



