§410. The Soldiers.--The freeborn citizens of Rome below the nobles and the knights may be roughly divided into two classes, the soldiers and the proletariate. The civil wars had driven them from their farms or had unfitted them for the work of farming, and the pride of race or the competition of slave labor had closed against them the other avenues of industry, numerous as these must have been in the world's capital. The best of this class turned to the army. This had long since ceased to be composed of citizen-soldiers, called out to meet a special emergency for a single campaign, and disbanded at its close. It was what we should call a regular army, the soldiers enlisting for a term of twenty years, receiving stated pay and certain privileges after an honorable discharge. In time of peace, when there was peace, they were employed on public works (§385). The pay was small, perhaps forty or fifty dollars a year with rations in Caesar's time, but this was as much as a laborer could earn by the hardest kind of toil, and the soldier had the glory of war to set over against the stigma of work, and hopes of presents from his commander and the privilege of occasional pillage and plunder. After he had completed his time he might if he chose return to Rome, but many had formed connections in the communities where their posts were fixed and preferred to make their homes there on free grants of land, an important instrument in spreading Roman civilization. §411. The Proletariate.--In addition to the idle and the profligate attracted to Rome by the free corn and by the other allurements that bring a like element into our cities now, large numbers of the industrious and the frugal had been forced into the city by the loss of their property during the civil wars and the failure to find employment elsewhere. No exact estimate of the number of these unemployed people can be given, but it is known that before Caesar's time it had passed the mark of 300,000. Relief was occasionally given by the establishing of colonies on the frontiers--in this way Caesar put as many as 80,000 in the way of earning their living again, short as was his administration of affairs at Rome--but it was the least harmful element that was willing to emigrate and the dregs were left behind. Aside from beggary and petty crimes their only source of income was the sale of their votes, and this made them a real menace to the Republic. Under the Empire their political influence was lost and the state found it necessary to make distributions of money occasionally to relieve their want. Some of them played client to the upstart rich (§181), but the most were content to be fed by the state and amused by the constantly increasing shows and games (§322).