The excessive number of slaves was then a danger to society and a cause of weakness to the State;[637] and there was the same inconvenience in regard to the freedmen. Citizens since the time of Servius Tullius, but without right of suffrage; free in fact, but remaining generally attached to their old masters; physicians, artists, grammarians, they were incapable, they and their children, of becoming senators, or of forming part of the college of pontiffs, or of marrying a free woman, or of serving in the legions, unless in case of extreme danger. Sometimes admitted into the Roman communalty, sometimes rejected; veritable mulattoes of ancient times, they participated in two natures, and bore always the stigma of their origin.[638] Confined to the urban tribes, they had, with the proletaries, augmented that part of the population of Rome for which the conqueror of Carthage and Numantia often showed a veritable disdain: “Silence!” he shouted one day, “you whom Italy does not acknowledge for her children;” and as the noise still continued, he proceeded, “Those whom I caused to be brought here in chains will not frighten me because to-day their bonds have been broken.”[639] When the people of the town assembled in the Forum without the presence of the rural tribes, which were more independent, they were open to all seductions, and to the most powerful of these--the money of the candidates and the distributions of wheat at a reduced price. They were also influenced by the mob of those deprived of political rights, when, crowding the public place, as at the English _hustings_, they sought, by their cries and gestures, to act on the minds of the citizens. On another hand, proud of the deeds of their ancestors, the principal families, in possession of the soil and of the power, desired to preserve this double advantage without being obliged to show themselves worthy of it; they seemed to disdain the severe education which had made them capable of filling all offices,[640] so that it might be said that there existed then at Rome an aristocracy without nobility, and a democracy without people. There were, then, injustices to redress, exigencies to satisfy, and abuses to repress; for neither the sumptuary laws, nor those against solicitation, nor the measures against the freedmen, were sufficient to cure the diseases of society. It was necessary, as in the time of Licinius Stolo (378), to have recourse to energetic measures--to give more stability to power, confer the right of city on the peoples of Italy, diminish the number of slaves, revise the titles to landed property, distribute to the people the lands illegally acquired, and thus give a new existence to the agricultural class. All the men of eminence saw the evil and sought the remedy. Caius Lælius, among others, the friend of Scipio Æmilianus, and probably at his instigation, entertained the thought of proposing salutary reforms, but was prevented by the fear of raising troubles.[641]