STATE OF SOCIETY. C HAP. IX. 



of gold and silver could be possessed by private 

 families. There were none of those gradations 

 of rank and property in Rome which are to be 

 found at this time commonly in Europe, but 

 eminently in Great Britain. There was scarcely 

 any middle class of society, such as with us are 

 the possessors of the chief portion of the stock 

 of accumulated wealth. The public was com- 

 posed of a few patrician families, who, though 

 some of them were poor, held the greater por- 

 tion both of land and money. The great mass 

 of the inhabitants were either labourers on their 

 own contracted spots of land, or that rented 

 either for money or produce from the great pro- 

 prietors. With these were mingled many slaves, 

 collected from various and often distant nations, 

 who were as transferable and commonly as de- 

 stitute of property as the flocks they tended or 

 the soil they tilled. 



The higher classes who were aiming at power 

 through popularity, at first with the mob, and at 

 a later period with the soldiers, were induced 

 by the circumstances in which they found 

 themselves to attend more to public display than 

 to private comfort. From their situation it be- 

 came necessary to their success, as public men, 

 that they should have a reserve stock ready to 

 be distributed whenever the distribution of it 

 might serve the purposes of ambition. Domestic 

 utensils or personal ornaments would be less 



