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Gallegico Directory 02
Page 05
As soon as the building operations are fully completed, the eager little householder sallies forth into his pond or brook in search of a mate who will come and stock his neatly-built home for him. At this stage of the proceedings, his wedding-garment becomes even more brilliant and glancing than ever; he gleams in silver and changeful gems; when he finds his lady-love, he dances round her, "mad with excitement," as Darwin well phrased it, looking his handsomest and best with his lustrous colours glistening like an opal. If she will listen to his suit, he grows wild with delight, and coaxes her into the nest with most affectionate endearments. In No. 2, as you perceive, the mate of his choice has been induced to enter, and is laying her eggs in the dainty home his care has provided for her. The father fish, meanwhile dances and capers around, in a _pas de triomphe_ at the success of his endeavors.
The decay of the peasant proprietors was an inevitable consequence of these frequent and long-protracted wars. In the earlier times the citizen-soldier, after a few weeks' campaign, returned home to cultivate his land; but this became impossible when wars were carried on out of Italy. Moreover, the soldier, easily obtaining abundance of booty, found life in the camp more pleasant than the cultivation of the ground. He was thus as ready to sell his land as the nobles were anxious to buy it. But money acquired by plunder is soon squandered. The soldier, returning to Rome, swelled the ranks of the poor; and thus, while the nobles became richer and richer, the lower classes became poorer and poorer. In consequence of the institution of slavery there was little or no demand for free labor, and as prisoners taken in war were sold as slaves, the slave-market was always well supplied. The estates of the wealthy were cultivated by large gangs of slaves; and even the mechanical arts, which give employment to such large numbers in the modern towns of Europe, were practiced by slaves, whom their masters had trained for the purpose. The poor at Rome were thus left almost without resources; their votes in the popular assembly were nearly the only thing they could turn into money, and it is therefore not surprising that they were ready to sell them to the highest bidder.
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