Ch. xiv. among the Romans. 245 



other causes, still more powerful in depopulation, 

 had not concurred. 



When the equality of property, which had for- 

 merly prevailed in the Roman territory, had been 

 destroyed by degrees, and the land had fallen into 

 the hands of a few great proprietors, the citizens, 

 who were by this change successively deprived 

 of the means of supporting themselves, would 

 naturally have no resource to prevent them from 

 starving, but that of selling their labour to the 

 rich, as in modern states : but from this resource 

 they were completely cut off by the prodigious 

 number of slaves, which, increasing by constant 

 influx with the increasing luxury of Rome, filled 

 up every employment both in agriculture and 

 manufactures. Under such circumstances, so 

 far from being astonished that the number of free 

 citizens should decrease, the wonder seems to be 

 that any should exist besides the proprietors. 

 And in fact many could not have existed but for a 

 strange and preposterous custom, which, however, 

 the strange and unnatural state of the city might 

 perhaps require, that of distributing vast quan- 

 tities of corn to the poorer citizens gratuitously. 

 Two hundred thousand received this distribution 

 in Augustus's time ; and it is highly probable 

 that a great part of them had little else to depend 

 upon. It is supposed to have been given to every 

 man of full years; but the quantity was not 

 enough for a family, and too much for an indivi- 

 dual.* It could not therefore enable them to in- 



" Huoie, Iissay, xi. p. 488. 



