Nearly all of them built,
erected huge houses, entire streets of them, for purposes of sale; but
they also gambled in land, selling plots at large profit to petty
speculators, who also dreamt of making large profits amidst the
continuous, fictitious rise brought about by the growing fever of
agiotage. And the worst was that the petty speculators, the middle-class
people, the inexperienced shop-keepers without capital, were crazy enough
to build in their turn by borrowing of the banks or applying to the
companies which had sold them the land for sufficient cash to enable them
to complete their structures. As a general rule, to avoid the loss of
everything, the companies were one day compelled to take back both land
and buildings, incomplete though the latter might be, and from the
congestion which resulted they were bound to perish. If the expected
million of people had arrived to occupy the dwellings prepared for them
the gains would have been fabulous, and in ten years Rome might have
become one of the most flourishing capitals of the world. But the people
did not come, and the dwellings remained empty. Moreover, the buildings
erected by the companies were too large and costly for the average
investor inclined to put his money into house property. Heredity had
acted, the builders had planned things on too huge a scale, raising a
series of magnificent piles whose purpose was to dwarf those of all other
ages; but, as it happened, they were fated to remain lifeless and
deserted, testifying with wondrous eloquence to the impotence of pride.
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