[1107] At each lustrum vota were offered “quae in proximum lustrum suscipi mos est” (Suet. Aug. 97). Before the censorship of Scipio Aemilianus it had been the custom to pray “ut populi Romani res meliores amplioresque facerent”; after it, on his initiative, “ut eas perpetuo incolumes servent” (Val. Max. iv. 1, 10).
[1108] Cic. de Leg. Agr. ii. 19, 50 and 51; 29, 81. The leases were sometimes of considerable duration (Hyginus p. 116 Lachm. “Ex hoste capti agri postquam divisi sunt per centurias ... qui superfuerunt agri vectigalibus subjecti sunt, alii per annos [quinos], alii per annos centenos pluresve: finito illo tempore iterum veneunt locanturque ita ut vectigalibus est consuetudo”).
[1109] e.g. a lex censoria enjoined that not more than five thousand workmen should be employed in the gold mines of Vercellae by the contractor who worked them (Plin. H.N. xxxiii. 78).
[1110] The jurists inform us that this is the true sense of publicanus; the conductores are only publicanorum loco (Dig. 39, 4, 12, 13). In common parlance, however, both are publicani, and this usage is etymologically justifiable, since they are both concerned with a publicum, a word which denotes state revenue and state service (Dig. 39, 4, 1; Tac. Ann. xiii. 51; Liv. xxiii. 49, 1).
[1111] Vectigal (ἀποφορά Plut. Ti. Gracch. 8; cf. App. B.C. i. 7). In the case of pasture land it was called scriptura (Festus p. 833).
[1112] Lex agraria l. 85 “ex lege dicta, quam ... censores ... deixerunt, publicano dare oportuit.”
[1113] Cic. in Verr. ii. 26, 63; 60, 147; iii. 7, 18.
[1114] ib. iii. 6, 12 and 14.
[1115] Polyb. vi. 17. The Senate can συμπτώματος γενομένου κουφίσαι καὶ τὸ παράπαν ἀδυνάτου τινὸς συμβάντος ἀπολῦσαι τῆς ἐργωνίας. Cf. the section on the Senate’s control of property. In 169 and 59 B.C. we find the people releasing from an oppressive contract (Liv. xliii. 16; App. B.C. ii. 13).
[1116] Cic. de Leg. iii. 3, 7 “templa, vias, aquas ... tuento”; ad Fam. xiii. 11, 1 “sarta tecta (i.e. the repairs of walls and roofs) aedium sacrarum locorumque communium tueri.”