It appears that the Italians were not excluded from the
benefit of this law.[6]
The design of this bill was to recruit the ranks of the Romans by drafts of
freeholders from among the Latins. Such as had been reduced to poverty were
to be restored to independence. Such as had been sunk beneath oppression
were to be lifted up to liberty.[7] No more generous scheme had ever been
brought before the Romans. None ever met with more determined opposition,
and for this there was much reason. There might have been some like the
tribune's friends ready to part with the lands bequeathed to them by their
fathers; but where one was willing to confess, a hundred stood ready to
deny the claim upon them. Nor had they any such demands to meet as those
of the olden times. Then the plebeians were a firm and compact body which
demanded a share of recent conquests that their own blood and courage had
gained. Now it was a loose and feeble body of various members waiting for
a share in land long since conquered, while their patron rather than their
leader exerted himself for them.
Tiberius, like Licinius, met with violent opposition, but he had not like
him the patience and the fortitude to wait the slower but safer process of
legitimate agitation.
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