But he was a strong man and
willing to begin life anew. He sowed and planted and waited
for the harvest. He carried his grain to the market together
with his cattle and his poultry, to find that the large landowners
who worked their estates with slaves could underbid him all
along the line. For a couple of years he tried to hold his own.
Then he gave up in despair. He left the country and he went
to the nearest city. In the city he was as hungry as he had been
before on the land. But he shared his misery with thousands
of other disinherited beings. They crouched together in filthy
hovels in the suburbs of the large cities. They were apt
to get sick and die from terrible epidemics. They were all
profoundly discontented. They had fought for their country and
this was their reward. They were always willing to listen to
those plausible spell-binders who gather around a public
grievance like so many hungry vultures, and soon they became a
grave menace to the safety of the state.
But the class of the newly-rich shrugged its shoulders.
``We have our army and our policemen,'' they argued, ``they
will keep the mob in order.'' And they hid themselves behind
the high walls of their pleasant villas and cultivated their
gardens and read the poems of a certain Homer which a Greek
slave had just translated into very pleasing Latin hexameters.
In a few families however the old tradition of unselfish
service to the Commonwealth continued.
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