a place in order that he might participate in the
advantages of state maintenance.

The annona civica.

In Rome the clan-family became the dominant political factor. As in
England and elsewhere in the middle ages, and even in later times, the
family, in these circumstances, assumes an influence which is out of
harmony with the common good. The social advantage of the family lies in
its self-maintenance, its home charities, and its moral and educational
force, but if its separate interests are made supreme, it becomes
uncharitable and unsocial. In Rome this was the line of development. The
stronger clan-families crushed the weaker, and became the "oligarchy of
warriors and slaveholders." In the same spirit they possessed themselves
of the _ager publicus_. The land obtained by the Romans by right of
conquest was public. It belonged to the state, and to a yeoman state it
was the most valuable acquisition. At first part of it was sold and part
was distributed to citizens without property and destitute (cf.
Plutarch, _Tib. Gracchus_). At a very early date, however, the patrician
families acquired possession of much of it and held it at a low rental,
and thus the natural outlet for a conquering farmer race was monopolized
by one class, the richer clan-families. This injustice was in part
remedied by the establishment of colonies, in which the emigrant
citizens received sufficient portions of land. But these colonies were
comparatively few, and after each conquest the rich families made large
purchases, while the smaller proprietors, whose services as soldiers
were constantly required, were unable to attend to their lands or to
retain possession of them. To prevent this (367 B.C.) the Licinian law
was passed, by which ownership in land was limited to 500 _jugera_,
about 312 acres. This law was ignored, however, and more than two
centuries later the evil, the double evil of the dispossession of the
citizen farmer and of slavery, reached a crisis. The slave war broke out
(134 B.C.) and (133 B.C.) Tiberius Gracchus made his attempt to re-endow
the Roman citizens with the lands which they had acquired by conquest.
He undertook what was essentially a charitable or philanthropic
movement, which was set on foot too late. He had passed through Tuscany,
and seen with resentment and pity the deserted country where the foreign
slaves and barbarians were now the only shepherds and cultivators. He
had been brought up under the infl