What if some time an army of them marches on the land as the Lombards did in Italy, as the Germans did on Gaul and the Turks did on Byzantium? They were land-hungry, ill-armed hordes too, and the legions could not stop them.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. Steinbeck believes that the dispossessed migrant farmers will at some stage rise up against the landowners. He cites examples from the history of Europe where land-hungry armies rose up and opposing forces could not stop them.