fth
century or as an incidental consequence of a mere administrative
measure, and besides it would scarce have disappeared wholly from
tradition. 100,000 light -asses-, or 40,000 sesterces, may, moreover,
be reasonably regarded as the equivalent of the original Roman full
hide of perhaps 20 -jugera- (I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform);
so that, according to this view, the rates of the census as a whole
have changed merely in expression, and not in value.

61. III. V. Fabius and Minucius

62. II. I. The Dictator

63. III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia

64. III. V. Flaminius, New Warlike Preparations in Rome

65. III. V. Fabius and Minucius

66. III. XI. Squandering of the Spoil

67. III. VI. Publius Scipio

68. III. VI. The African Expedition of Scipio

69. III. X. Humiliation of Rhodes

70. II. II. Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius

CHAPTER XII

The Management of Land and of Capital

Roman Economics

It is in the sixth century of the city that we first find materials
for a history of the times exhibiting in some measure the mutual
connection of events; and it is in that century also that the economic
condition of Rome emerges into view more distinctly and clearly.
It is at this epoch that the wholesale system, as regards both the
cultivation of land and the management of capital, becomes first
established under the form, and on the scale, which afterwards
prevailed; although we cannot exactly discriminate how much of that
system is traceable to earlier precedent, how much to an imitation of
the methods of husbandry and of speculation among peoples that were
earlier civilized, especially the Phoenicians, and how much to the
increasing mass of capital and the growth of intelligence in the
nation. A summary outline of these economic relations will conduce
to a more accurate understanding of the internal history of Rome.

Roman husbandry(1) applied itself either to the farming of estates, to
the occupation of pasture lands, or to the tillage of petty holdings.
A very distinct view of the first of these is presented to us in the
description given by Cato.

Farming of Estates
Their Size

The Roman land-estates were, considered as larger holdings, uniformly
of limited extent. That described by Cato had an area of 240 jugera;
a very common measure was the so-called -centuria- of 200 -jugera-.
Where the laborious culture of the vine was pursued, the unit of
husbandry was made still