Note (return) — FAMISHING PORTUGAL.

The ruin of the lands of Carthage, Spain, etc. eventually hastened the ruin of Italy. It put an end to the legitimate supplies of grain which those countries had been accustomed to contribute; it forced their populations to crowd into already overcrowded Italy, and increase the requirements of food in a country which had been exploited like their own, and, though not so rapidly, yet by similar means;1 and it gave rise to the servile wars, to the most corrupt period in Roman history, to the Empire, and to the endless series of consequences in its train.