Part 10 (2/2)

[Footnote 189: For the history of the practice, see the article ”Frumentariae Leges,” in Smith's _Dictionary of Antiquities_.]

[Footnote 190: The first step by Gracchus does not seem to have been much resisted (Merivale, _Fall of the Roman Republic_, p. 22; but cp.

Long, _Decline of the Roman Republic_, i, 262), such measures having been for various reasons resorted to at times in the past (Pliny, _Hist.

Nat._ xviii, 1; Livy, ii, 34); but in the reaction which followed, the process was for a time restricted (Merivale, p. 34).]

[Footnote 191: It seems to have been he who, as consul, first caused the distribution to be made gratuitous. See Cicero, _ad Attic._ ii, 19, and _De Domo Sua_, cc. 10, 15. The Clodian law, making the distribution gratuitous, was pa.s.sed next year.]

[Footnote 192: Suetonius, _Julius_, c. 41.]

[Footnote 193: Dio Ca.s.sius, xliii, 24.]

[Footnote 194: It must have been the relative dearness of land transport that kept the price of corn so low in Cisalpine Gaul in the time of Polybius, who describes a remarkable abundance (ii, 15).]

[Footnote 195: Suetonius, _Aug._ cc. 40, 41.]

[Footnote 196: _Hist. Nat._ xviii, 7 (6).]

[Footnote 197: Cp. his _Economicus_, chs. 5, 9, 11, 20, etc.]

[Footnote 198: Meyer, _Gesch. des Alterthums_, iii, 682 (-- 379).]

[Footnote 199: Plutarch, _Tiberius Gracchus_, c. 8.]

[Footnote 200: _E.g._, in the provinces of Africa (Gibbon, Bohn ed. iii, 445) and Sicily (Pelham, _Outlines_, p. 121).]

[Footnote 201: Cp. Pliny, as last cited.]

[Footnote 202: The Italians consumed large quant.i.ties of pork, mainly raised in the north (Polybius ii, 15; xii. fr. 1). Aurelian began a pork as well as a wine and oil ration for the Romans (Vopiscus, _Aurelia.n.u.s_, 35, 47); and under Valentinian III the annual consumption in the city of Rome was 3,628,000 lbs., there being then a free distribution to the poor during five months of the year. Gibbon calculates that it sold at less than 2d. per lb. (Bohn ed. iii, 417-18.)]

[Footnote 203: Cp. Spalding, _Italy and the Italian Islands_, i, 372-75, 392, 398; Merivale, _History_, c. 32; ed. 1873, iv, 42; M'Culloch, as cited, pp. 286-92; Finlay, _History of Greece_, i, 43; Gibbon, Bohn ed.

iii, 418; Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Years of the Roman Empire_, 2nd ed. p. 122 and refs.; and Blanqui, _Histoire de l'economie politique_, 2e ed. i, 123, as to the progression of the policy of feeding the populace. Cp. also Suetonius, _in Aug._ c. 42.]

[Footnote 204: There is, however, reason to surmise that the murder of Pertinax was planned, not by the praetorians who did the deed, but by the official and moneyed cla.s.s who detested his reforms. See them specified by Gibbon, ch. iv, _end_.]

[Footnote 205: It is noteworthy that in the United States the New England region, producing neither coal nor iron, neither cotton nor (latterly) wheat, continues to retain a manufacturing primacy as against the South, in virtue of the (in part climatic) industry and skill of its population.]

[Footnote 206: Mommsen, _History of Rome_, Eng. tr. large ed. v, 5 (_Provinces_, vol. i); Gibbon, ch. iii, near end (Bohn ed. i, 104); cp.

Mahaffy, _The Greek World under Roman Sway_, p. 397; Milman, _History of Christianity_, Bk. I, ch. vi; Renan, _Les Apotres_, ed. 1866, p. 312; and Hegewisch, as cited by Finlay (i, 80, _note_), who protests that the favourable view cannot be taken of the state of Greece and Egypt. Mr.

Balfour (_Decadence_, 1908, p. 18) chimes in with Mommsen and the rest.]

[Footnote 207: Cp. Pelham, _Outlines_, p. 473.]

[Footnote 208: Gibbon, ch. xvii; Bohn ed. ii, 194, and _notes_.]

[Footnote 209: Symmachus speaks of a famine about the time of the confiscation of the temple revenues. Ep. x, 54.]

[Footnote 210: Valentinian had resumed those temple revenues which had been restored by Julian, but went no further, though he vetoed the acquisition of legacies by his own church. That Gratian's step was rather financial than fanatical is proved by his having at the same time endowed the pagan rhetors and grammarians as a small religious _quid pro quo_. Beugnot, _Hist. de la destr. du paganisme en occident_, 1835, i, 478.]

[Footnote 211: There was a fresh relapse after Theodoric, in the ruinous wars between Justinian and the Goths and Franks. Revival began in the north under the Lombards, and was stimulated in the south after the revolt of Gregory II against Leo the Iconoclast, which made an end of the payment of Italian tribute to Byzantium. (Gibbon, Bohn ed. v, 127, 372, 377.)]

<script>