 "The plunder from the provinces provided the funds for that orgy of corrupt and selfish wealth which was to consume the Republic in revolution," writes Will Durant in his series of volumes called "The Story of Civilization".Innis mentions that the large-scale farms owned by aristocrats brought protests presumably from small farmers forced off the land and into the cities as part of a growing urban proletariat.The Gracchi brothers were among the first, Innis writes, "to use the weapon of Greek rhetoric" in their failed attempts to secure democratic reforms.