the common benefit,
of the unhappy question of the domains. We do not mean, however, to
express any doubt that the regulations of the Licinian laws, such as
they were, might and did substantially benefit the small farmer and
the day-labourer. It must, moreover, be acknowledged that in the
period immediately succeeding the passing of the law the authorities
watched with at least comparative strictness over the observance of
its rules as to the maximum, and frequently condemned the possessors
of large herds and the occupiers of the domains to heavy fines.

Laws Imposing Taxes--
Laws of Credit

In the system of taxation and of credit also efforts were made with
greater energy at this period than at any before or subsequent to it
to remedy the evils of the national economy, so far as legal measures
could do so. The duty levied in 397 of five per cent on the value of
slaves that were to be manumitted was--irrespective of the fact that
it imposed a check on the undesirable multiplication of freedmen--the
first tax in Rome that was really laid upon the rich. In like manner
efforts were made to remedy the system of credit. The usury laws,
which the Twelve Tables had established,(9) were renewed and gradually
rendered more stringent, so that the maximum of interest was
successively lowered from 10 per cent (enforced in 397) to 5 per cent
(in 407) for the year of twelve months, and at length (412) the taking
of interest was altogether forbidden. The latter foolish law remained
formally in force, but, of course, it was practically inoperative; the
standard rate of interest afterwards usual, viz. 1 per cent per month,
or 12 per cent for the civil common year--which, according to the
value of money in antiquity, was probably at that time nearly the same
as, according to its modern value, a rate of 5 or 6 per cent--must
have been already about this period established as the maximum of
appropriate interest. Any action at law for higher rates must have
been refused, perhaps even judicial claims for repayment may have been
allowed; moreover notorious usurers were not unfrequently summoned
before the bar of the people and readily condemned by the tribes to
heavy fines. Still more important was the alteration of the procedure
in cases of debt by the Poetelian law (428 or 441). On the one hand
it allowed every debtor who declared on oath his solvency to save his
personal freedom by the cession of his property; on the other hand