TROUBLES OF ANCIENT TIMES. 33 



tensive parks," controlled by the favored few, took the 

 place of the once very numerous peasantry. The free 

 Roman citizen disappeared from the old farms, and the 

 cultivation of the soil was given over to the " slave 

 gangs." Tiberius Gracchus, who undertook to grapple 

 with the trouble, said of his unfortunate fellow-citizens : 

 " They are called * masters of the world,' and have not 

 a foot of ground in their possession ; without homes, 

 without any fixed abode, they wander from place to 

 place with their wives and children." 



It is not required to pursue this farther, to show that 

 we have not entered upon the solution of an altogether 

 new problem, or a problem which has not a counterpart 

 in some important particulars, at least, with the fallen 

 civilizations. 



2* 



