Henceforward the Roman citizen had hardly any burdens to bear except the necessity of military service, and there are very distinct signs that he was beginning to be unwilling to bear even that one.

He saw the prominent men of his time enriching themselves abroad and leading luxurious lives, and the spirit of ease and idleness began inevitably to affect him too.

Polybius indeed, writing about 140-130 B.C., declines to state positively that the great Romans were corrupt or extortionate,[106] and those who were his intimate friends, Aemilius Paullus and his sons, were distinguished for their "abstinentia": but the mere occurrence of this word "abstinentia" in the epitomes of Livy's lost books which dealt with this time, betrays the fact too obviously.

In 149 was passed the first of the long series of laws intended, but in vain, to check the tendency of provincial governors to extort money from their subjects; and as this law established for the first time a standing court to try offences of this kind, the inference is inevitable that such offences were common and on the increase.
The remarkable fact about this inpouring of wealth is its extraordinary suddenness.

Within the lifetime of a single individual, Cato the Censor, who died an old man in 149 B.C., the financial condition of the State and of individuals had undergone a complete change.