e._ those rated between
4,000 and 1,500 asses and all freedmen, together with the free-born rated
between 1,500 asses ($30) and 375 asses ($7.50), were enrolled in the
burgess infantry.[17] It is easy enough to see that the gift on the part of
the government of 30 jugera (24 acres) of land to each poor citizen,
would raise him from the ranks of the proletariate and make him liable to
military service.
This is sufficient to establish Mommsen's thesis;[18] and it is not
necessary to consider the second point, viz., that non-citizens were not to
share in the benefit of the land law nor thereby to be raised to the rank
of citizens, although to us it would be no more difficult to believe this
than that 76,000 allies had been admitted to the Roman franchise "by
several plebiscites" no trace or rumor of which had been preserved.
It can hardly be supposed that the Italian farmers were multiplied at
the same ratio as were the Romans; but the result must have been most
beneficial even to them.
In the accomplishing of this result, respectable interests and existing
rights were no doubt violated. The commission itself was composed of
violent partisans who, being judges unto themselves, did not scruple to
carry out their plans even at the cost of recklessness and tumult.
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