In general, the economic and social condition of Italy was not primarily dependent on political distinctions; there were allied districts, such as Umbria and Etruria, in which the class of free farmers had mostly disappeared, while in others, such as the valleys of the Abruzzi, the same class had still maintained a tolerable footing or remained almost unaffected--just as a similar diversity could be pointed out in the different Roman burgess-districts.

On the other hand the political inferiority of Italy was daily displayed more harshly and more abruptly.

No formal open breach of right indeed occurred, at least in the principal questions.

The communal freedom, which under the name of sovereignty was accorded by treaty to the Italian communities, was on the whole respected by the Roman government; the attack, which the Roman reform party at the commencement of the agrarian agitation made on the Roman domains guaranteed to the communities of better position, had not only been earnestly opposed by the strictly conservative as well as by the middle party in Rome, but had been very soon abandoned by the Roman opposition itself.
Disabilities and Wrongs of the Subjects But the rights, which belonged and could not but belong to Rome as the leading community--the supreme conduct of war-affairs, and the superintendence of the whole administration--were exercised in a way which was almost as bad as if the allies had been directly declared to be subjects devoid of rights.

The numerous modifications of the fearfully severe martial law of Rome, which were introduced there in the course of the seventh century, seem to have remained on the whole limited to the Roman burgess-soldiers: this is certain as to the most important, the abolition of executions by martial law,( 1) and we may easily conceive the impression which was produced when, as happened in the Jugurthine war, Latin officers of repute were beheaded by sentence of the Roman council of war, while the lowest burgess-soldier had in the like case the right of presenting an appeal to the civil tribunals of Rome.