pended solely on the pleasure of the king, so long as the public
land remained such, to grant and to define its joint enjoyment; and it
is not to be doubted that he frequently made use of his right, or at
least his power, as to this matter in favour of plebeians. But on the
introduction of the republic the principle was again strictly insisted
on, that the use of the common pasture belonged in law merely to the
burgess of best right, or in other words to the patrician; and, though
the senate still as before allowed exceptions in favour of the wealthy
plebeian houses represented in it, the small plebeian landholders and
the day-labourers, who stood most in need of the common pasture, had
its joint enjoyment injuriously withheld from them. Moreover there
had hitherto been paid for the cattle driven out on the common pasture
a grazing-tax, which was moderate enough to make the right of using
that pasture still be regarded as a privilege, and yet yielded no
inconsiderable revenue to the public purse. The patrician quaestors
were now remiss and indulgent in levying it, and gradually allowed it
to fall into desuetude. Hitherto, particularly when new domains were
acquired by conquest, allocations of land had been regularly arranged,
in which all the poorer burgesses and --metoeci-- were provided for;
it was only the land which was not suitable for agriculture that was
annexed to the common pasture. The ruling class did not venture
wholly to give up such assignations, and still less to propose them
merely in favour of the rich; but they became fewer and scantier, and
were replaced by the pernicious system of occupation-that is to say,
the cession of domain-lands, not in property or under formal lease for
a definite term, but in special usufruct until further notice, to the
first occupant and his heirs-at-law, so that the state was at any time
entitled to resume them, and the occupier had to pay the tenth sheaf,
or in oil and wine the fifth part of the produce, to the exchequer.
This was simply the -precarium- already described(2) applied to the
state-domains, and may have been already in use as to the public land
at an earlier period, particularly as a temporary arrangement until
its assignation should be carried out. Now, however, not only did
this occupation-tenure become permanent, but, as was natural, none but
privileged persons or their favourites participated, and the tenth and
fifth were collected with the same negli