Such was the plaint of the land-holders, one not devoid of equity and, therefore, awakening a response in the minds of timid and sober business men, who were as yet unaffected by the danger. But some of these found their own personal interests at stake. So good had the tenure seemed, that it had been accepted as security for debt,[351] and the Gracchan attack united for once the usually hostile ranks of mortgagers and mortgagees. The alarm spread from Rome to the outlying municipalities. [352] Even in the city itself a very imperfect view of the scope of the bill was probably taken by the proletariate. We may imagine the distorted form in which it reached the ears of the occupants of the country towns. "Was it true that the land which had been given them in usufruct was to be taken away?" was the type of question asked in the municipia and in the colonies, whether Roman or Latin. The needier members of these towns received the news with very different feelings. They had every chance of sharing in the local division of the spoils, and their voices swelled the chorus of approval with which the poorer classes everywhere received the Gracchan law. Amidst this proletariate certain catch-words--well-remembered fragments of Gracchus's speeches-- had begun to be the familiar currency of the day. "The numberless campaigns through which this land has been won," "The iniquity of exclusion from what is really the property of the State," "The disgrace of employing the treacherous slave in place of the free-born citizen"-- such was the type of remark with which the Roman working-man or idler now entertained his fellow. All Roman Italy was in a blaze, and there must have been a sense of insecurity and anxiety even in those allied towns whose interest in Roman domain-land was remote. Might not State interests be as lightly violated as individual interests by a sovereign people: and was not the example of Rome almost as perilous as her action?