" Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs, exclaimed
in a moment of indignation, "The wild beasts of Italy have at least
their lairs, but the men who offer their blood for Italy have only the
light and the air that they breathe; they wander about without
shelter, without a dwelling, with their wives and their children.
Those generals do but mock them who exhort them to fight for their
tombs and their temples. Is there one of them who still possesses the
sacred altar of his house and the tomb of his ancestors? They are
called the masters of the world while they have not for themselves a
single foot of earth."
=The City Plebs.=--While the farms were being drained, the city of
Rome was being filled with a new population. They were the descendants
of the ruined peasants whom misery had driven to the city; besides
these, there were the freedmen and their children. They came from all
the corners of the world--Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Asiatics,
Africans, Spaniards, Gauls--torn from their homes, and sold as slaves;
later freed by their masters and made citizens, they massed themselves
in the city.
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