But they were merely strays and did not count, and they were gathered in anyway during the following year.* * The destruction of the Roman yeomanry proceeded far less rapidly than the destruction of the American farmers and small capitalists.

There was momentum in the twentieth century, while there was practically none in ancient Rome.
Numbers of the farmers, impelled by an insane lust for the soil, and willing to show what beasts they could become, tried to escape expropriation by withdrawing from any and all market-dealing.

They sold nothing.

They bought nothing.

Among themselves a primitive barter began to spring up.