The last century of the republic was characterised by the collapse of popular government, because of the wide extension of the citizenship, the considerable adulteration of the citizen body at Rome by the introduction of un-Romanized orientals, chiefly through the manumission of slaves, the growth in Rome of an unemployed proletariat, the rise of demagogues, and the complexity of the problems of government. The increasingly corrupt senate had lost control of the assemblies, the armies and the generals. The financiers as well as the governors, saw in the provinces only a field for exploitation.