The wars which had been so exhausting to the almost inexhaustible Sabines, had been scarcely less ruinous to the Romans, and indeed the opening up of so many bones of contention had, to use the words of a recent writer, consumed "the very marrow of the nation."[34] In spite of all their conquests, the people were miserably poor; for destruction, instead of production, had been their occupation during a series of years; and though their wants had been supplied for a time by plunder, scarcity was sure to ensue at last, from a stoppage of the very source of all wealth, the peaceful exercise of industry. The tide of adversity which, in the first instance, overwhelms only the lower ranks, rises, with unerring certainty, until even the highest are absorbed, and few are able, in the end, to keep their heads above water. When circumstances appear hopeless, remedies become desperate, rash legislation ensues, and thus, during the distresses of Rome, the plebs having seceded, a proposal was adopted, in the shape of the Hortensian Law, to allow them to do just as they liked, in order to tempt them back again. [Illustration: The Ambassadors purchasing Æsculapius.] This was, happily, the last secession of the plebs, who, in their dignified withdrawal, remained completely within the pale of the law, while passing beyond the gates of the city. The intention of the seceders was to get on as they could without the patrician class, leaving the latter to do their best by themselves--a proceeding that had speedily the effect of showing that there is a mutual dependence between all ranks, and that one cannot exist in comfort without the association and support of the other. In Rome, the patricians had played the dangerous game of exercising the rights of their position without fulfilling its duties; and the plebeians finding themselves deprived of their share of the profits of the connection, were quite justified in cutting it. After the passing of the Hortensian Law, the invidious distinction between the patricians and the people was at an end, and the word _populus_ was applied to the whole body of citizens; but with the natural tendency of all classes to level only down to themselves, the Romans who were well to do in the world continued to use the term _plebs_, or _plebecula_, in a depreciatory sense, to denote the multitude.