ore the farmer-system
at any price, even at that of a revolution--concealed under
juristic clauses--directed against property; by him on the contrary,
as by every other genuine statesman, the security of that
which is property or is at any rate regarded by the public
as property was esteemed as the first and most inviolable
of all political maxims, and it was only within the limits assigned
by this maxim that he sought to accomplish the elevation of the Italian
small holdings, which also appeared to him as a vital question
for the nation. Even as it was, there was much still left for him
in this respect to do. Every private right, whether it was called
property or entitled heritable possession, whether traceable to Gracchus
or to Sulla, was unconditionally respected by him. On the other hand,
Caesar, after he had in his strictly economical fashion--
which tolerated no waste and no negligence even on a small scale--
instituted a general revision of the Italian titles to possession
by the revived commission of Twenty,(73) destined the whole
actual domain land of Italy (including a considerable portion
of the real estates that were in the hands of spiritual guilds
but legally belonged to the state) for distribution in the Gracchan
fashion, so far, of course, as it was fitted for agriculture;
the Apulian summer and the Samnite winter pastures belonging
to the state continued to be domain; and it was at least the design
of the Imperator, if these domains should not suffice, to procure
the additional land requisite by the purchase of Italian estates
from the public funds. In the selection of the new farmers provision
was naturally made first of all for the veteran soldiers,
and as far as possible the burden, which the levy imposed
on the mother country, was converted into a benefit by the fact
that Caesar gave the proletarian, who was levied from it as a recruit,
back to it as a farmer; it is remarkable also that the desolate
Latin communities, such as Veii and Capena, seem to have been
preferentially provided with new colonists. The regulation
of Caesar that the new owners should not be entitled to alienate
the lands received by them till after twenty years, was a happy medium
between the full bestowal of the right of alienation, which would have
brought the larger portion of the distributed land speedily
back into the hands of the great capitalists, and the permanent
restrictions on freedom of dealing in land which Tib