ABSTRACT
THE economic revolution, which took place between 202 and 30 B.c. corresponded to a continual increase in the servile population. The very abundance of slave labour explains the changes which came about in methods of production at the time of the Gracchi and took still firmer root as Republican institutions declined. On the one hand the latifundia could not have been exploited if their holders had not possessed great troops of slaves and on the other the division of labour could not have been practised, even to the limited extent to which it existed, unless prisoners of war and skilled artisans bought in the markets of the eastern Mediterranean had been available to furnish industry with brawny arms and with technical skill of an order which was frequently highly developed. Rome, when she adopted the Asiatic taste for luxury and dress, took from Asia at the same time workmen to satisfy her new requirements. Nevertheless, this bodily seizure, although sanctioned by custom, was not without certain disadvantages and even perils; we have already drawn attention to these and it only remains to add that they characterized above all the second period of the present history. As the years passed, the Romans came to realize that the workman in chains was not the equal of the free worker, that his standards remained primitive and that he did not work with a will at the agricultural or manufacturing tasks assigned to him.
