The judicious rule of law, which prohibited individuals condemned for a capital offence from dwelling in the capita, was not carried into effect by the negligent police.

The police-supervision--so urgently required-- of association on the part of the rabble was at first neglected, and afterwards( 44) even declared punishable as a restriction inconsistent with the freedom of the people.

The popular festivals had been allowed so to increase that the seven ordinary ones alone--the Roman, the Plebeian, those of the Mother of the Gods, of Ceres, of Apollo, of Flora( 45) and of Victoria--lasted altogether sixty-two days; and to these were added the gladiatorial games and numerous other extraordinary amusements.

The duty of providing grain at low prices-- which was unavoidably necessary with such a proletariate living wholly from hand to mouth--was treated with the most unscrupulous frivolity, and the fluctuations in the price of bread-corn were of a fabulous and incalculable description.( 46) Lastly, the distribution of grain formed an official invitation to the whole burgess-proletariate who were destitute of food and indisposed for work to take up their abode in the capital.
Anarchy of the Capital The seed sown was bad, and the harvest corresponded.

The system of clubs and bands in the sphere of politics, the worship of Isis and similar pious extravagances in that of religion, had their root in this state of things.