the small.  In these judicious regulations the injurious character of the occupation-system, which moreover was long ago given up,(4) was at length officially recognized, but unhappily they were only adopted when it had already deprived the state in substance of its domanial possessions.  While the Roman aristocracy thus took care of itself and got whatever occupied land was still in its hands converted into its own property, it at the same time pacified the Italian allies, not indeed by conferring on them the property of the Latin domain-land which they and more especially their municipal aristocracy enjoyed, but by preserving unimpaired the rights in relation to it guaranteed to them by their charters.  The opposite party was in the unfortunate position, that in the most important material questions the interests of the Italians ran diametrically counter to those of the opposition in the capital; in fact the Italians entered into a species of league with the Roman government, and sought and found protection from the senate against the extravagant designs of various Roman demagogues.

The Proletariate and the Equestrian Order under the Restoration

While the restored government was thus careful thoroughly to eradicate the germs of improvement which existed in the Gracchan constitution, it remained completely powerless in presence of the hostile powers that had been, not for the general weal, aroused by Gracchus.  The proletariate of the capital continued to have a recognized title to aliment; the senate likewise acquiesced in the taking of the jurymen from the mercantile order, repugnant though this yoke was to the better and prouder portion of the aristocracy.  The fetters which the aristocracy wore did not beseem its dignity; but we do not find that it seriously set itself to get rid of them.  The law of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus in 632, which at least enforced the constitutional restrictions on the suffrage of freedmen, was for long the only attempt—­and that a very tame one—­on the part of the senatorial government once more to restrain their mob-tyrants.  The proposal, which the consul Quintus Caepio seventeen years after the introduction of the equestrian tribunals (648) brought in for again entrusting the trials to senatorial jurymen, showed what the government wished; but showed also how little it could do, when the question was one not of squandering domains but of carrying a measure in the face of an influential order.  It broke down.(5) The government was not emancipated from the inconvenient associates who shared its power; but these measures probably contributed still further to disturb the never sincere agreement of the ruling aristocracy with the merchant-class and the proletariate.  Both were very well aware, that the senate granted all its concessions only from fear and with reluctance; permanently attached to the rule of the senate by considerations neither of gratitude nor of interest, both were very