re provided for, in accordance with these
promises, out of the goods of the proscribed and the lands confiscated to
the state. The lands of the towns mentioned in Appian were taken under the
form of a forced sale, but the purchase money was never paid owing to the
bankrupt condition of the treasury.

If we examine into the nature of these agrarian laws since the death of
Julius Caesar, we shall find that they differ in all respects from previous
enactments:

1. They were executed at the expense not only of public domains but also of
private property.

2. They were the work of one man and not of the entire people.

3. The name of the people was never mentioned in these laws; they were
enacted wholly for the profit of the soldiery. Before the distributions
made by the triumvirate, the public lands had been absorbed, or at least
the fragments remaining were in no way sufficient to recompense the service
of the veterans.

Upon the establishment of the empire, the public lands became a vast
manorial estate whose over-lord was the emperor himself.

[Footnote 1: L. Langii, Commentationis de Legibus Antoniis a Cicerone
Phil., V, 4, 10; Commemoratis particula prior et posterior; Lipsiae,
1882; Lange, _Roem. Alter._, III, 499, 503, 526; Marquardt u. Momm., _Roem.
Alter._, IV, 116.]

[Footnote 2: Lange, _Comm._, II, 14.]

[Footnote 3: Cicero, _Phil._, VI, 5, 14; XI, 6, 13.]

[Footnote 4: _Phil._, V, 7, 20.]

[Footnote 5: Langii, _Comm._, II, 14.]

[Footnote 6: Cic., _Phil._, II, 17, 43; II, 39, 101; III, 9, 22; VIII, 8,
26; Dio Cass., 45, 30; 46, S.]

[Footnote 7: Cic., _Phil._, V, 4, 10; V, 19, 53; X, 8, 17; VIII, 15, 31.]

[Footnote 8: [Greek: "Dosesi ton Italikon poleon oktokaideka ... osper
autois anti taes polemias dorilaeptoi genomenai.... Outo men ta kallista
taes Italias to strato diegrephon."] App., IV, 3.]

FINIS.

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Roman Republic, by Andrew Stephenson

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