case with Rome. Either she must organise her corn-supply on a secure
basis, or get rid of her swarms of poor inhabitants; the latter
alternative might have been possible if she had been willing to let
them starve, but probably in no other way. To attempt to put them out
upon the land again was hopeless; they knew nothing of agriculture,
and were unused to manual labour, which they despised.

Thus ever since Rome had been a city of any size it had been the duty
of the plebeian aediles to see that it was adequately supplied with
corn, and in times of dearth or other difficulty these magistrates had
to take special measures to procure it. With a population steadily
rising since the war with Hannibal, and after the acquisition of two
corn-growing provinces, to which Africa was added in 146 B.C., it was
natural that they should turn their attention more closely to the
resources of these; and now the provincial governors had to see that
the necessary amount of corn was furnished from these provinces at a
fixed price, and that a low one.[58] In 123 B.C. Gaius Gracchus took
the matter in hand, and made it a part of his whole far-reaching
political scheme. The plebs urbana had become a very awkward element
in the calculations of a statesman, and to have it in a state of
starvation, or even fearing such a state, was dangerous in the
extreme, as every Roman statesman had to learn in the course of the
two following centuries. The aediles, we may guess, were quite unequal
to the work demanded of them; and at times victorious provincial
governors would bring home great quantities of corn and give it away
gratis for their private purposes, with bad results both economic
and moral. Gracchus saw that the work of supply needed thorough
organisation in regard to production, transport, warehousing, and
finance, and set about it with a delight in hard work such as no Roman
statesman had shown before, believing that if the people could be