The State at once found itself confronted with a difficult problem: what was to be done with the professional soldiers when their time of service had expired? Men who had served for a term of years found their previous employments closed to them. Alongside with the expansion of the Empire went the depression of Italian agriculture; the food supplies of the capital were increasingly drawn from Sicily, Africa and Sardinia; soldiers who had been free agricultural labourers found their places taken by the captives whom they had themselves reduced to slavery. The remedy that suggested itself was to assign lands to the soldiers; they could either be sent to form military colonies in conquered territory, or be provided with land in Italy confiscated on various pretexts, or simply taken without further excuse. This remedy was not in all respects successful. Men who had become used to the excitements of war and the pleasures of looting, did not settle down readily to the drudgery of farming; some parted with their farms, others in cases where the farm had been one appropriated by the State, allowed the proprietor who had been defrauded to retain possession on condition of paying a rent; some of these men re-enlisted, others went to swell the mob of the capital and enjoy its amusements. The Roman people of Cicero’s days largely consisted of men drawn from many parts of Italy, who had been, or still were, soldiers, and who had no objection to being bribed to give their votes; if they had any political convictions they were Italian rather than Roman; if they resisted any further extension of the privileges of citizenship it was from interested motives, and not because they loved the Conservative party in the Senate. As Rome was the only place in which votes could be given, the tendency was for all Italians possessing the status of Roman citizens to drift into Rome, if they had no occupations to detain them elsewhere. Men who aspired to be political leaders had to win the favour of this increasing multitude.