The Romans, at the time when Cincinatus held the plough, and the conquerors of nations roasted their own turnips, would have thought themselves degraded by eating bread obtained by such means; but it was different with the Romans after they had conquered the world.
In a more recent example, we may trace a similar effect, arising from a cause not very different.
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{103} We know better about the laws and manners of the Romans 2000 years ago, in the time of the first Punic War, than about those of England, in the time of Henry the Fourth. They had fixed laws, their state was young, and the division of property tolerably equal.
{104} See Arbuthnot on Coins.
{105} Do not the soup-shops of late invention, and certainly well intended, bear some resemblance to these days of Roman wretchedness and magnificence.
{106} It is to be observed, these donations were not on account of scarcity, but to save the people from the trouble of working to earn the corn; they were become idle in body and degraded in mind.
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The unequal division of property in France was one of the chief causes of the revolution; the intention of which was, to overturn the then existing order of things. The ignorance of the great proprietors concerning of their true interests, and the smallness of their numbers, disabled them from protecting themselves. The middle orders were discontented, and wished for a change; and the lower orders were so degraded, that, at the first signal, they became as mutinous and as mean as the Plebians at Rome, in the days of its splendor. {107}