were sold on public account to the citizens of Rome at 24 and even at 12 -asses- (1 shilling 8 pence or ten pence).  Some years afterwards (558), more than 240,000 bushels of Sicilian grain were distributed at the latter illusory price in the capital.  In vain Cato inveighed against this shortsighted policy:  the rise of demagogism had a part in it, and these extraordinary, but presumably very frequent, distributions of grain under the market price by the government or individual magistrates became the germs of the subsequent corn-laws.  But, even where the transmarine corn did not reach the consumers in this extraordinary mode, it injuriously affected Italian agriculture.  Not only were the masses of grain which the state sold off to the lessees of the tenths beyond doubt acquired under ordinary circumstances by these so cheaply that, when re-sold, they could be disposed of under the price of production; but it is probable that in the provinces, particularly in Sicily—­in consequence partly of the favourable nature of the soil, partly of the extent to which wholesale farming and slave-holding were pursued on the Carthaginian system(10)—­the price of production was in general considerably lower than in Italy, while the transport of Sicilian and Sardinian corn to Latium was at least as cheap as, if not cheaper than, its transport thither from Etruria, Campania, or even northern Italy.  In the natural course of things therefore transmarine corn could not but flow to the peninsula, and lower the price of the grain produced there.  Under the unnatural disturbance of relations occasioned by the lamentable system of slave-labour, it would perhaps have been justifiable to impose a duty on transmarine corn for the protection of the Italian farmer; but the very opposite course seems to have been pursued, and with a view to favour the import of transmarine corn to Italy, a prohibitive system seems to have been applied in the provinces—­for though the Rhodians were allowed to export a quantity of corn from Sicily by way of special favour, the export of grain from the provinces must probably, as a rule, have been free only as regarded Italy, and the transmarine corn must thus have been monopolized for the benefit of the mother-country.

Prices of Italian Corn

The effects of this system are clearly evident.  A year of extraordinary fertility like 504—­when the people of the capital paid for 6 Roman -modii- (1 1/2 bush.) of spelt not more than 3/5 of a -denarius- (about 5 pence), and at the same price there were sold 180 Roman pounds (a pound = 11 oz.) of dried figs, 60 pounds of oil, 72 pounds of meat, and 6 -congii- (= 4 1/2 gallons) of wine—­is scarcely by reason of its very singularity to be taken into account; but other facts speak more distinctly.  Even in Cato’s time Sicily was called the granary of Rome.  In productive years Sicilian and Sardinian corn was disposed of in the Italian ports for the freight.  In the richest corn districts of the