ike the constitution itself, on the basis of
the freehold system; as the freeholder alone was of value in the
state, the aim of war was to increase the number of its freehold
members. The vanquished community was either compelled to
merge entirely into the yeomanry of Rome, or, if not reduced to
this extremity, it was required, not to pay a war-contribution or
a fixed tribute, but to cede a portion, usually a third part, of
its domain, which was thereupon regularly occupied by Roman farms.
Many nations have gained victories and made conquests as the Romans
did; but none has equalled the Roman in thus making the ground
he had won his own by the sweat of his brow, and in securing by
the ploughshare what had been gained by the lance. That which is
gained by war may be wrested from the grasp by war again, but it
is not so with the conquests made by the plough; while the Romans
lost many battles, they scarcely ever on making peace ceded Roman
soil, and for this result they were indebted to the tenacity with
which the farmers clung to their fields and homesteads. The strength
of man and of the state lies in their dominion over the soil; the
greatness of Rome was built on the most extensive and immediate
mastery of her citizens over her soil, and on the compact unity of
the body which thus acquired so firm a hold.

System of Joint Cultivation

We have already indicated(2) that in the earliest times the arable
land was cultivated in common, probably by the several clans; each
clan tilled its own land, and thereafter distributed the produce
among the several households belonging to it. There exists indeed
an intimate connection between the system of joint tillage and the
clan form of society, and even subsequently in Rome joint residence
and joint management were of very frequent occurrence in the case
of co-proprietors.(3) Even the traditions of Roman law furnish
the information that wealth consisted at first in cattle and the
usufruct of the soil, and that it was not till later that land
came to be distributed among the burgesses as their own special
property.(4) Better evidence that such was the case is afforded
by the earliest designation of wealth as "cattle-stock" or
"slave-and-cattle-stock" (-pecunia-, -familia pecuniaque-), and of
the separate possessions of the children of the household and of
slaves as "small cattle" (-peculium-) also by the earliest form
of acquiring property through laying hold of it with