Yet, in the end, the Principate has to be accepted, for the Principate, while abolishing political freedom, averts civil war and preserves the non political classes. […] When the individuals and classes that have gained wealth, honours and power through revolution emerge as champions of ordered government, they do not surrender anything. […] Etruria and Umbria, though wavering, had remained loyal to Rome: the propertied classes had good reason to fear a social revolution. […] No doubt: the propertied classes looked with distrust upon the reform programmes of Roman tribunes and hated the Roman poor. […] Not everywhere, or among all classes.