In consequence of this treatment of the Italians on the part of the Roman government, the variance, which the wisdom of their ancestors had carefully fostered between the Latin and the other Italian communities, could not fail, if not to disappear, at any rate to undergo abatement.( 4) The curb-fortresses of Rome and the districts kept to their allegiance by these fortresses lived now under the like oppression; the Latin could remind the Picentine that they were both in like manner "subject to the fasces"; the overseers and the slaves of former days were now united by a common hatred towards the common despot.
While the present state of the Italian allies was thus transformed from a tolerable relation of dependence into the most oppressive bondage, they were at the same time deprived of every prospect of obtaining better rights.

With the subjugation of Italy the Roman burgess-body had closed its ranks; the bestowal of the franchise on whole communities was totally given up, its bestowal on individuals was greatly restricted.( 5) They now advanced a step farther: on occasion of the agitation which contemplated the extension of the Roman franchise to all Italy in the years 628, 632, the right of migration to Rome was itself attacked, and all the non-burgesses resident in Rome were directly ejected by decree of the people and of the senate from the capital( 6)--a measure as odious on account of its illiberality, as dangerous from the various private interests which it injuriously affected.

In short, while the Italian allies had formerly stood to the Romans partly in the relation of brothers under tutelage, protected rather than ruled and not destined to perpetual minority, partly in that of slaves tolerably treated and not utterly deprived of the hope of manumission, they were now all of them subject nearly in equal degree, and with equal hopelessness, to the rods and axes of their Roman masters, and might at the utmost presume like privileged slaves to transmit the kicks received from their masters onward to the poor provincials.
The Rupture Fregellan War Difficulty of a General Insurrection It belongs to the nature of such differences that, restrained by the sense of national unity and by the remembrance of dangers surmounted in common, they make their appearance at first gently and as it were modestly, till the breach gradually widens and the relation between the rulers, whose might is their sole right, and the ruled, whose obedience reaches no farther than their fears, manifests at length undisguisedly the character of force.

Down to the revolt and razing of Fregellae in 629, which as it were officially attested the altered character of the Roman rule, the ferment among the Italians did not properly wear a revolutionary character.

The longing after equal rights had gradually risen from a silent wish to a loud request, only to be the more decidedly rejected, the more distinctly it was put forward.