The mention of the freedmen in this letter may serve to remind us of the political results of manumission, the second fact in the legal aspect of Roman slavery.  The most important of these is the rapid importation of foreign blood into the Roman citizen body, which long before the time of Cicero largely consisted of enfranchised slaves or their descendants; it was to this that Scipio Aemilianus alluded in his famous words to the contio he was addressing after his return from Numantia, “Silence, ye to whom Italy is but a stepmother” (Val.  Max. 6. 2. 3).  Had manumission been held in check or in some way superintended by the State, there would have been more good than harm in it.  Many men of note, who had an influence on Roman culture, were libertini, such as Livius Andronicus and Caecilius the poets; Terence, Publilius Syrus, whose acquaintance we made in the last chapter; Tiro and Alexis, and rather later Verrius Flaccus, one of the most learned men who ever wrote in Latin.  But the great increase in the number of slaves, and the absence of any real difficulty in effecting their manumission, led to the enfranchisement of crowds of rascals as compared with the few valuable men.  The most striking example is the enfranchisement of 10,000 by Sulla, who according to custom took his name Cornelius, and, though destined to be a kind of military guarantee for the permanence of the Sullan institutions, only became a source of serious peril to the State at the time of Catiline’s conspiracy.  Caesar, who was probably more alive to this kind of social danger than his contemporaries, sent out a great number of libertini,—­the majority, says Strabo, of his colonists,—­to his new foundation at Corinth[362].  But Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing in the time of Augustus, when he stayed some time in Rome, draws a terrible picture of the evil effects of indiscriminate manumission, unchecked by the law[363].

“Many,” he says, “are indignant when they see unworthy men manumitted, and condemn a usage which gives such men the citizenship of a sovereign state whose destiny is to govern the world.  As for me, I doubt if the practice should be stopped altogether, lest greater evil should be the result; I would rather that it should be checked as far as possible, so that the state may no longer be invaded by men of such villainous character.  The censors, or at least the consuls, should examine all whom it is proposed to manumit, inquiring into their origin and the reasons and mode of their enfranchisement, as in their examination of the equites.  Those whom they find worthy of citizenship should have their names inscribed on tables, distributed among the tribes, with leave to reside in the city.  As to the crowd of villains and criminals, they should be sent far away, under pretext of founding some colony.”