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C.
It is curious to notice that by the time these old gilds emerge into
light again as clubs that could be used for political purposes, a new
source of gain, and one that was really sordid, had been placed within
the reach of the Roman plebs urbana: it was possible to make money by
your vote in the election of magistrates. In that degenerate when the
vast accumulation of capital made it possible for a man to purchase
his way to power, in spite of repeated attempts to check the evil by
legislation, the old principle of honourable association was used to
help the small man to make a living by choosing the unprincipled and
often the incompetent to undertake the government of the Empire.
Apart, however, from such illegal means of making money, there was
beyond doubt in the Rome of the last century B.C. a large amount of
honest and useful labour done by free citizens. We must not run away
with the idea that the whole labour of the city was performed by
slaves, who ousted the freeman from his chance of a living.


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