Relations of the Oligarchy to the Populace

Moreover, the government not only did nothing to counteract this corruption of the population of the capital, but even encouraged it for the benefit of their selfish policy.  The judicious rule of law, which prohibited individuals condemned for a capital offence from dwelling in the capita, was not carried into effect by the negligent police.  The police-supervision—­so urgently required—­ of association on the part of the rabble was at first neglected, and afterwards(44) even declared punishable as a restriction inconsistent with the freedom of the people.  The popular festivals had been allowed so to increase that the seven ordinary ones alone—­the Roman, the Plebeian, those of the Mother of the Gods, of Ceres, of Apollo, of Flora(45) and of Victoria—­lasted altogether sixty-two days; and to these were added the gladiatorial games and numerous other extraordinary amusements.  The duty of providing grain at low prices—­ which was unavoidably necessary with such a proletariate living wholly from hand to mouth—­was treated with the most unscrupulous frivolity, and the fluctuations in the price of bread-corn were of a fabulous and incalculable description.(46) Lastly, the distribution of grain formed an official invitation to the whole burgess-proletariate who were destitute of food and indisposed for work to take up their abode in the capital.

Anarchy of the Capital

The seed sown was bad, and the harvest corresponded.  The system of clubs and bands in the sphere of politics, the worship of Isis and similar pious extravagances in that of religion, had their root in this state of things.  People were constantly in prospect of a dearth, and not unfrequently in utter famine.  Nowhere was a man less secure of his life than in the capital; murder professionally prosecuted by banditti was the single trade peculiar to it; the alluring of the victim to Rome was the preliminary to his assassination; no one ventured into the country in the vicinity of the capital without an armed retinue.  Its outward condition corresponded to this inward disorganization, and seemed a keen satire on the aristocratic government.  Nothing was done for the regulation of the stream of the Tiber; excepting that they caused the only bridge, with which they still made shift,(47) to be constructed of stone at least as far as the Tiber-island.  As little was anything done toward the levelling of the city of the Seven Hills, except where perhaps the accumulation of rubbish had effected some improvement.  The streets ascended and descended narrow and angular, and were wretchedly kept; the footpaths were small and ill paved.  The ordinary houses were built of bricks negligently and to a giddy height, mostly by speculative builders on account of the small proprietors; by which means the former became vastly rich, and the latter were reduced to beggary.  Like isolated islands amidst this sea of wretched buildings were