tary colonizers of the countries thus brought under their rule a third of the lands was reserved for assignment to Roman settlers on the conquered territories; and by a plan of citizenship, the old inhabitants were brought to identify themselves with their new masters. One state which had for several centuries been a peaceable neighbour, at length incurred the resentment, and brought down the vengeance, of Rome, by its requiring the surrender of one-half of the lands of the conquered people.

Although this system of aggrandisement of a people, by foreign conquest, is condemned by public opinion in modern times, and in fact would not be permitted among civilized nations, still we cannot but admire, and may even applaud, the course pursued by the ancient Romans. In those early ages, wars were the business and almost the recreation of men; and as communities or nations consisted of tribes living without much of the artificial refinements of society, military operations of an offensive or defensive nature could be carried on, without great derangement to the social system; in fine, war might almost be termed the natural state of such communities. The calm of peace, in ancient times, was oftener the slumbering torpor of a people under the pressure of despotism, than the quiet enjoyment of the blessings arising from freedom from violent disturbThe Romans only followed the course which the circumstances of the times forced upon them; and the valour, discipline, and wisdom displayed by them in extending and sustaining the power which victory afforded them, have been, and will be, the subjects of admiration in all ages. Indeed the very existence of the present great European nations, may be said to be derived from the Roman stock of empire; but wars, which indirectly led to this state of matters, are not now necessary for its perma

ance.

nency. The affairs of society have become complicated, and are of a too artificial nature to bear, without great detriment, the violent operations of war. Considering

ancient wars as the means of having spread indirectly civilization over the nations of the world, commerce, in modern times, accomplishes, or ought to accomplish, in human affairs, all that wars formerly achieved.

But the Romans, as they extended their conquests and cemented their power, became intoxicated with victory, and corrupted by the spoils of war. A sudden influx of wealth was accompanied with its usual effects on the habits and manners of the people; but one of the most demoralizing circumstances of this system of warfare, was to be found in the extraordinary increase of captives, who, by the laws of war in those ages, became slaves for life to the conquerors. In the latter age of the republic, about 150,000 slaves were made in one war, and distributed through Italy. The liberties of the Roman citizens were gradually giving way under such a system, and the power and corruption of the aristocratic order, increased by the extension of territory, and by the plunder of the conquered people. A strife commenced between the old patricians and the burghers, on account of the former becoming richer and richer by war, and the administration of public offices, while the people became poorer and poorer by military service. The Agrarian laws of Licinius had become a dead letter, and, at the end of the second century from their enactment, the immense tracts of land acquired by the military services of the people, were a prey to the rapacity of the patricians.

The usurped possession of the public lands, at a time when the population had so greatly increased, enabled the aristocratic order effectually to command the food of the

citizens; and exorbitant wealth, in the shape of gold and silver, afforded the means of bribery and corruption.

The people were rapidly sinking under this tyrannical power, when two extraordinary men, brothers, appeared, and made noble efforts to save their unhappy countrymen from ruin. The state of the country at this period was really dreadful,—for the people were not only deprived of their share of the public domains, but the aristocratic usurpers of the lands actually employed slaves for their cultivation, and turned off the free population. To increase the miseries of the people, oppressive war-taxes weighed. down the middle and poorer classes, who were obliged to sell their little patrimonial farms, to raise funds to satisfy the rapacious demands of the dominant faction, whose wealth enabled them to buy up the property thus offered for sale. The object of the Gracchi, was to restore the public lands to the people, and to renew the Agrarian laws of Licinius, but, as was to be expected, they met with the most vehement opposition from the senate, who were the possessors, or rather plunderers, of the public property.

But, even in this time of patrician power and corruption, the constitutional forms were observed by the Gracchi, in their efforts to obtain justice for the people; but these legal forms were set at nought by the insolence of the aristoeratic faction, for "even when Tiberius Gracchus had at length carried his point of getting his rogation read to the people, and had proceeded to erect booths for the voters, and caused the balloting boxes to be placed in readiness, these boxes or urns, in which the votes were deposited, were removed by force by the partisans of the senatorial faction."*

At length this brave and patriotic man fell a victim to senatorial vengeance, which was also wreaked on the Lardner's History.

defenceless multitude, waiting to learn the issue of the business. Many thousand citizens were on this occasion massacred by a numerous band of slaves and clients, led on by the consul himself.

The cruelty of the conquering party bred the bitterest enmity between the aristocracy and the people, and from this time political struggles of parties sank into the unnatural contest between the rich and the poor. This was shown in the most terrible civil wars that ever convulsed a country. The people throughout the Italian states, almost rose in mass to demand a redress of grievances, and, in twenty years afterwards, the slave population, under the command of the celebrated Spartacus, flew to arms, and carried consternation even to Rome itself. The first was called the Social war, and the second the Servile war. On the breaking out of the Social war, it was proposed to "win the poorer class of citizens, by allotments of land, and the wholly indigent by distribution of corn."

The aristocracy, who pushed aside the free population to supply their place with slaves, and who ruled both with a rod of iron, were properly considered the authors of the Servile war. Sylla the dictator declared to his army, "that might prevailed over right at Rome, and that he contemplated the bestowing, through the extirpation of one generation, a wholly new constitution on another." However, death prevented this monster from effecting his fell design; but previous to his death he had become satiated with blood; and, disgusted with his own cruelty, he abdicated the seat of power, at a time when all men thought him fixed in it beyond the chance of removal. From this event, the affairs of the Roman people rushed to a crisis, and from it commenced that terrible struggle among a few of the most powerful men, for the empire of Rome, and, through it,

of the world, and at the end of about seven hundred years from the foundation of the city, a corrupt aristocracy and an impoverished and dispirited people were crushed under the pure military despotism of the Emperors. Their history will not be farther pursued, as it only presents the harsh features of unrelenting tyranny, and the abasement and consequent corruption of the people, whose voice was at length heard only in the cry for bread, and the gladiator.

PART II.

ANALYSIS OF THE ROMAN HISTORY.

THE ECONOMICS OF THE ROMAN ARISTOCRATIC SYSTEM APPLIED TO THE CONDITION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE ROMAN AND BRITISH CORN-LAWS--THE ROMAN CITIZENS WERE FED FOR THEIR POLITICAL VOTES, BUT BECAME SLAVES FOR WANT OF A PURE REPRESENTATIVE LEGISLATIVE SYSTEM.

BUT there are some circumstances in the Roman history, down to the establishment of the empire under Augustus Cæsar, which will be referred to in support of the definition that Food is Power.

Rome had its system of corn-laws; but the object of them was not to prohibit or restrict the importation of corn into Italy, and thereby give a monopoly of the home-market to the aristocracy in possession of the public lands; it was rather to encourage the introduction of grain, and to reduce its price.

In a country so circumstanced as Italy, with the most fertile lands completely in the hands of the aristocracy, this care on the part of the government to provide an abundant supply of cheap bread, is rather remarkable. A free trade

E