If a nation is in a healthful condition politically and economically so
that the restorative vigor of nature is not impeded by bad restrictive
laws, the devastations of land and losses of human life are quickly
repaired. We might the more especially have expected this in a climate
so genial and on a soil so fertile as that of Italy. But Roman laws so
restricted the right of buying and selling land that in every Italian
community none but members of that community, or Roman citizens, could[24]
buy or inherit. This restriction upon free competition, by giving the
advantage to Roman citizens, was in itself sufficient to ruin the
prosperity of every Italian town. This law operated continually and
unobservedly and resulted in placing,[25] year by year, a still larger
quantity of the soil of Italy in the hands of the Roman aristocracy.
In order to palliate the evils of conquest or at least to hide their
conditions of servitude, the Romans had accorded to a part of the Italians
the title of allies, and to others the privileges of _municipia_.[26] These
privileges were combined in a very skillful manner in the interest of Rome,
but this skill did not hinder the people from perceiving that they depended
upon the mere wish of the conquerors and consequently were not rights, but
merely favors to be revoked at will.
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