440 LAND REFORM 



decline of Roman greatness. The austere virtues and sim- 

 plicity of life of rural Rome were dying out. The country 

 proletariat was flocking into the towns, leaving the country- 

 sides deserted, and the old military spirit and discipline were 

 disappearing. The army became an army of mercenaries 

 and proletariats, and even slaves were enlisted under the 

 promise of freedom. 



Throughout the centuries there were patriotic and far- 

 sighted men in Rome, as there were men of the same class 

 in England, who saw the cause of the evils that were 

 shadowing their country and sought to remove it. But in 

 both countries these men shared the same fate at the hands 

 of an infuriated landed aristocracy. 



The Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius probably was the 

 first notable attempt to save the old order of things, but 

 though his law contained nothing but what was just and 

 moderate, yet " Cassius had to die." The territorial magnates 

 thought that by destroying the reformer the demand for 

 reform could be stayed. *' His law was buried along with 

 him, but its spectre henceforth incessantly haunted the eyes 

 of the rich, and again and again it rose from the tomb 

 against them till the conflicts to which it led destroyed the 

 commonwealth."^ Later on Marcus Manlius, who, from 

 accounts given of him, was among the noblest citizens of 

 Rome, was condemned to death by the great patrician land- 

 owners for an attempt to revive this agrarian law. After 

 him came a still greater man who adopted the same policy 

 and shared the same fate. "A youth without achievements 

 had the boldness to give himself forth as the saviour of 

 Italy. . . . War was declared against the great landlords." 

 (Mommsen.) There is a pathos in the account given by 

 the elder of the Gracchi of the condition to which the rural 

 districts had been reduced. As he was "passing through 

 Tuscany and found the country almost depopulated, there 

 being scarce any husbandmen or shepherds, except slaves 

 from foreign and barbarous nations," he decided on his great 

 project for land reform. It is stated that " there never was 



^ Monimsen's " History of Rome," Vol. I. 



