[Footnote 204-10: The disappearance of the middle class in Rome, between the second and third Punic war, was brought about chiefly by the great foreign conquests made by it. An idea of the wealth which the governors of the provinces might extort may be formed from this among other facts, that Cicero originally demanded against Verres a fine of 5,000,000 thalers. (_Cic._, in Verrem Div., 5.) Verres is related to have said, that he would be satisfied if he could retain the first year's booty; that during the second, he collected for his defenders; and during the third, for his judges! (_Cic._, in Verr., I, 14.) Even _Cicero_ became richer within the space of one year, in Cilicia, where it was well known he was not oppressive, by 110,000 thalers, which sum does not include numerous presents, pictures, etc. (_Drumann_, Gesch. Roms., VI, 384.) On the frightful oppression and extortion practised by Brutus (!) in Asia, see _Cicero_, ad. Att, V, 21; VI, 1. _Sallust_, in his Jugurtha, has shown how such men waged war, and to what extremes their well-deserved want might push them in his Catiline. _Patricium scelus!_ Most of the senators were in debt to Crassus; and this, together with his great political insurance-activity and power in elections, criminal cases at law, etc., it depended that he, for a time, figured beside Cæsar and Pompey. The wealth of these important personages must, and that not only relatively, have made the poor poorer and their luxury excited the covetousness of the people; but especially the great number of slaves they kept, combined with their pasturage system of husbandry, which rapidly spread over all of Italy after the provinces had emptied their granaries to supply the wants of the sovereign people, must have made it less and less possible for the proletarians to live by the work of their hands. Previously, the lower classes of the free born had been exempted from the military service, while slaves were conscripted for the fleet. Now, all this was changed; and thus was taken away one of the chief causes which had made the labor of free day laborers more advantageous on the larger estates. (_Nitzsch_, Gracchen, 124 ff., 235 ff.) The spoils of war and conquest caused the higher middle class to prefer to engage in the usurious loaning of money rather than in industry which would much more rapidly have formed a small middle class. (_Mommsen_, R. G. I, 622 ff.)