ius Marius. The final step was
taken eight years afterwards (643), when by a new decree of the
people(3) the occupied domain-land was directly converted into the
rent-free private property of the former occupants. It was added,
that in future domain-land was not to be occupied at all, but was
either to be leased or to lie open as public pasture; in the latter
case provision was made by the fixing of a very low maximum of ten
head of large and fifty head of small cattle, that the large herd-
owner should not practically exclude the small. In these judicious
regulations the injurious character of the occupation-system, which
moreover was long ago given up,(4) was at length officially recognized,
but unhappily they were only adopted when it had already deprived the
state in substance of its domanial possessions. While the Roman
aristocracy thus took care of itself and got whatever occupied land
was still in its hands converted into its own property, it at the same
time pacified the Italian allies, not indeed by conferring on them the
property of the Latin domain-land which they and more especially their
municipal aristocracy enjoyed, but by preserving unimpaired the rights
in relation to it guaranteed to them by their charters. The opposite
party was in the unfortunate position, that in the most important
material questions the interests of the Italians ran diametrically
counter to those of the opposition in the capital; in fact the
Italians entered into a species of league with the Roman government,
and sought and found protection from the senate against the
extravagant designs of various Roman demagogues.

The Proletariate and the Equestrian Order under the Restoration

While the restored government was thus careful thoroughly to eradicate
the germs of improvement which existed in the Gracchan constitution,
it remained completely powerless in presence of the hostile powers
that had been, not for the general weal, aroused by Gracchus.
The proletariate of the capital continued to have a recognized title
to aliment; the senate likewise acquiesced in the taking of the jurymen
from the mercantile order, repugnant though this yoke was to the
better and prouder portion of the aristocracy. The fetters which
the aristocracy wore did not beseem its dignity; but we do not find
that it seriously set itself to get rid of them. The law of Marcus
Aemilius Scaurus in 632, which at least enforced the constitutional
restrictions