Nothing is clearer than the diminution of the free population of Italy at this period. An excellent authority speaks of it as “the most notorious evil of the times”;[187] and this is attested by others. It is easy to infer that the freemen must have been few by the side of the slaves. Naturally, therefore, did the experienced general make his appeal to this most numerous and sympathetic class: he knew that so his strength would be best assured. And this was the very position of Mr. Sumner. It is evident that Plutarch himself was of the same opinion; for shortly afterwards, in narrating these events, he records that the other side did not suffer so much through incapacity “as by anxious and unseasonable attention to the laws,”[188] in preventing Emancipation. This important testimony is most vividly stated in the old translation of North, when he describes the opponent of Marius in Rome as failing “not so much for lack of reasonable skill of wars _as through his unprofitable curiosity and strictness in observing the law_; for, when divers did persuade him to set the bondmen at liberty to take arms for defence of the Commonwealth, he answered, that he would never give bondmen the law and privilege of a Roman citizen, having driven Caius Marius out of Rome to maintain the authority of the law.”[189] Here was passion for consistency, and want of practical sense. Marius was not troubled in this way. Another circumstance makes the conclusion yet clearer. On entering Rome, Marius surrounded himself, according to Plutarch, “with a guard _selected_ from the slaves that had repaired to his standard,”[190] or, according to the same authority in another place, “the slaves, whom he had admitted his fellow-soldiers,“[191] thus attesting still further their superior importance. In the troubles that ensued these freedmen played a bloody part, until they were destroyed by Sertorius; and here again their numbers appear. According to Plutarch, the guard ”_selected_ from the slaves that had repaired to his standard” was four thousand,[192] or not far from the ordinary complement of a Roman legion, which the accomplished scholar, Mr. George Long, tells us was the very force collected by Marius in Etruria.[193] Plainly, therefore, the emancipated slaves constituted the main body, if not the whole legion. Whatever may be the text of Plutarch, and supposing freemen among the recruits, nothing can prevent the conclusion, that emancipated slaves constituted the decisive force by which success was achieved. Therefore this example illustrates the efficacy of a proclamation giving freedom to slaves, and for this purpose it was adduced.