While the attempts at reformation were thus arrested in the bud, the social disorders became still more crying; for on the one hand the domain-possessions were ever extending in consequence of successful wars, and on the other hand debt and impoverishment were ever spreading more widely among the farmers, particularly from the effects of the severe war with Veii (348-358) and of the burning of the capital in the Gallic invasion (364). It is true that, when in the Veientine war it became necessary to prolong the term of service of the soldiers and to keep them under arms not--as hitherto at the utmost--only during summer, but also throughout the winter, and when the farmers, foreseeing their utter economic ruin, were on the point of refusing their consent to the declaration of war, the senate resolved on making an important concession. It charged the pay, which hitherto the tribes had defrayed by contribution, on the state-chest, or in other words, on the produce of the indirect revenues and the domains (348). It was only in the event of the state-chest being at the moment empty that a general contribution (-tributum-) was imposed on account of the pay; and in that case it was considered as a forced loan and was afterwards repaid by the community. The arrangement was equitable and wise; but, as it was not placed upon the essential foundation of turning the domains to proper account for the benefit of the exchequer, there were added to the increased burden of service frequent contributions, which were none the less ruinous to the man of small means that they were officially regarded not as taxes but as advances. Combination of the Plebian Aristocracy and the Farmers against the Nobility-- Licinio-Sextian Laws