THE EXAMPLE OF ROME 199 



sight. Pliny states that in 121 B. C. Rome became aware through 

 the cheapness of wine that a change had taken place in the methods 

 of agriculture. Vines and olives, so it appears from Cato and 

 others, had been substituted for grain in many places at the 

 beginning of the century, that is, immediately after the climate 

 became driest. Now, nearly a century later, there is evidence of 

 an agricultural change. Perhaps this was due to improved 

 methods, but much more probably the new methods were due to 

 the improvement in rainfall. Figure 24 shows that about 120 B. C. 

 a slight amelioration of the climate began to make itself felt. 

 A decade later, in 111, Spurius Thorius succeeded in enacting 

 a land law which is supposed to have been much better than those 

 proposed by the Gracchi. Thus he receives credit for the solution 

 of the great problem which had been vexing Rome for a century. 

 But does he deserve the credit? Agricultural disturbances cer- 

 tainly declined and the price of land rose rapidly after the law 

 was enacted, but look at Figure 24 and see how the rainfall and 

 hence the crops improved at just this time. Nature often does 

 the work which man thinks he has done. 



At the end of the second century before Christ, Rome was in the 

 state of a sick man who is just beginning to be convalescent. 

 As he grumbles, so she grumbled. "There were interminable dis- 

 cussions on the diseases from which Rome was suffering," says 

 Ferrero. One of these diseases was a deluge of crime. "Murder, 

 poisoning, theft, assassination, even family tragedies, became 

 alarmingly frequent. A large category of crimes committed by 

 women and young persons went entirely unpunished, being still 

 outside the cognizance of the law, and no longer dealt with by the 

 family. Even recognized offences, when committed by Roman 

 citizens often evaded a penalty." Another disease was anaemia. 

 "No one tried the remedy of action. Men frittered away their 

 energies in a morbid inertia, pouring vain encomiums upon a golden 

 past, and childishly appealing for the intervention of some heaven- 

 sent deliverer." The Romans did not recognize that their 



