The Social Distress, and the Attempt to Relieve It

Nevertheless one object of the compromise concluded by the two
portions of the plebs in 387, the abolition of the patriciate, had
in all material points been completely attained. The question next
arises, how far the same can be affirmed of the two positive objects
aimed at in the compromise?--whether the new order of things in
reality checked social distress and established political equality?
The two were intimately connected; for, if economic embarrassments
ruined the middle class and broke up the burgesses into a minority of
rich men and a suffering proletariate, such a state of things would at
once annihilate civil equality and in reality destroy the republican
commonwealth. The preservation and increase of the middle class, and
in particular of the farmers, formed therefore for every patriotic
statesman of Rome a problem not merely important, but the most
important of all. The plebeians, moreover, recently called to take
part in the government, greatly indebted as they were for their new
political rights to the proletariate which was suffering and expecting
help at their hands, were politically and morally under special
obligation to attempt its relief by means of government measures,
so far as relief was by such means at all attainable.

The Licinian Agrarian Laws

Let us first consider how far any real relief was contained in that
part of the legislation of 387 which bore upon the question. That
the enactment in favour of the free day-labourers could not possibly
accomplish its object--namely, to check the system of farming on
a large scale and by means of slaves, and to secure to the free