The political system of Rome now began to lead to a dreadful state of
public corruption. The Roman government was devised for the rule of a
city: all power was in the hands of the civic voters, and when there
came to be great prizes, in the way of great offices at home and abroad,
the voters began to find that their votes were worth something, and
unblushing bribery and corruption became common.
The demands of the large planters and merchants led to a great extension
of the slave-trade. All lands and all nations were laid under
contribution for slaves, but the places where they were chiefly captured
were Syria and the interior of Asia Minor. It is probable that at the
period at which we have now arrived (middle of the second century B. C.)
there were twelve million slaves against five million free inhabitants
in the Italian peninsula,--a most lamentable state of things!
In addition to the slaves, Italy became filled up with a motley
parasitic population from Asia and Africa and all the conquered
lands,--and the result of this intermixture soon appeared in a marked
degeneracy in the Roman race itself.