The law regarded them in the light of travellers at an inn.

The license to dwell in Rome was provisional, and for many centuries it was renewed every year.

Not only were they without any political rights, but they were deprived of even the most elementary civil rights.

They could neither possess property, nor engage in manufactures, nor cultivate the soil: they lived by botching and brokage.

How they lived at all surprises me.
Want, filth, and the infected atmosphere of their dens, had impoverished their blood, made them wan and haggard, and stamped disgrace upon their looks.