Hence, the _misera ac jejuna plebecula, concionalis hirudo aerarii_, according to _Cicero_, ad Att., I, 16, 6. At a time, when the Roman census showed a population of over 1,500,000, Philippus, 104 before Christ, otherwise a "moderate" man, could claim that there were not 2,000 citizens who had any property. (_Cic._, de Off., II, 21.) True, those few were in such a position, that Crassus would allow that those only were rich, who could feed an army at their own expense. (_Cicero_, Parad., VI, 61; _Plin._, H. N., XXXIII, 47.) Concerning the colossal private fortunes under some of the earlier imperators, see _Seneca_, De Benef., II, 27; _Tacit_., Ann., XII, 53, XIII, 32; XIV, 35; Dial. de Causis, 8, _Dio C._, LXIII, 2 seq. The clients of the time, that is the numerous poorly paid idlers treated as things of little value, in the service of the great, correspond, on a small scale, to the position of the great crowd in relation to the emperor. Compare _Friedländer_, Sittengeschichte Roms., I, 296 ff. As late as the West-Gothic storm, there were many houses which drew 4,000 pounds in gold, and about 1/3 as much in kind, from their estates, per annum. (_Plut._, Bibl. Cod., 80, 63, Bekk.) Goddess Pecunia Majestas divitiarum, in _Juvenal_, I, 113. If we take the Roman proletariat in its wider extent, the most frightful picture it presents is its slave-wars. Such a war Sicily had shortly before the _tribunate_ of the elder Gracchus, cost over a million (?) livres; and at the same time there was a great uprising of slaves desolating Greece. (_Athen._, VI, 83, 87 ff., 104.) A second war broke out in the time of Cimbri. But the most frightful was that under Spartacus, who collected 100,000 men, and the course of this uprising will always remain a type of proletarian and slave revolts. It originated among the most dangerous class of slaves, most dangerous because best prepared for the struggle, the gladiators, and among the immense _ergastula_, where they were held together in large masses. It spread with frightful rapidity, because the combustible material on which it fed was everywhere to be found. It was conducted with the most revolting cruelty. What the slaves demanded before all else was vengeance, and what dread had a gladiator of a death unaccompanied by torture?