(a). CIVIC COLONIES.
| COLONIES. | PLACE. | DATES B.C. | NO. OF C. | SIZE OF ALLOTS. | JUGERA. | ACRES. |
| Antiuim. Anxur. Minturnae. Sinuessa. Sena Gallica. Castrum Novum. Aesium. Alsium. Fregenae. Pyrgi. Puteoli. Volturnum. Liternum. Buxentum. Salernum. Sipontum. Tempsa. Croton. Potentia. Pisaurum. Parma. Mutina. Saturnia. Graviscae. Luna. Auximum. | Latium. " Campania. " Umbria. Picenum. Umbria. Etruria. " " Campania. " " Lucania. Campania. " Bruttii. " Picenum. Umbria. Gall. Cisalp. " " Etruria. " " Picenum. | 338 329 296 296 283 283 247 247 245 191 194 194 194 194 194 194 194 194 184 184 183 183 183 181 173 157 | 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 1,000 1,000 300 300 300 300 | 2 2 2 2 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 4 4 6 6 6 6 6 5 6 6 | 600 600 600 600 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,200 1,200 1,800 1,800 6,000 6,000 1,800 1,500 1,800 1,800 | 375 375 375 375 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 750 750 1,125 1,125 3,750 3,750 1,125 938 1,125 1,125 |
| | Total.............. | 38,900 | 30,500 |
(b). LATIN COLONIES.
| COLONIES. | PLACE. | DATES. | NO. OF C. | SIZE OF ALLOTS. | JUGERA. | ACRES. |
| Calles. Fregellae. Luceria. Suessa. Pontiae. Saticula. Sora. Alba. Narnia. Carseoli. Venusia. Hatria. Cosa. Paestum. Ariminum. Beneventum. Firmum. Aesernia. Brundisium. Spoletium. Cremona. Placentia. Copiae. Bononia. Aquileia. | Campania. Latium. Apulia. Latium. Isle of Latium. Samnium. Latium. " Umbria. Sabini. Apulia. Picenum. Campania. Lucania. Agr. Gallicus. Samnium. Picenum. Samnium. Calabria. Umbria. Gaul. " Lucania. Gaul. " | 334 328 314 313 313 313 312 303 299 298 291 289 273 273 268 268 264 263 244 241 218 218 193 192 181 | 300 300 300 300 300 300 4,000 6,000 300 4,000 300 300 1,000 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 6,000 6,000 300 3,000 4,500 | 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 | 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200 16,000 36,000 1,800 24,000 1,800 1,800 6,000 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 1,800 36,000 36,000 1,800 18,000 27,000 |
750 750 750 750 750 750 10,000 22,500 1,125 15,000 1,125 1,125 3,750 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 22,500 22,500 1,125 11,250 16,875 |
| | Total.............. Civic Colonies .......... Grand Total ............. | 226,000 38,900 ________ 264,900 | 141,250 30,500 ________ 171,750 or 268.36 Sq. Mi. |
- [Footnote 1: I have not here added Roman conquests outside of the peninsula of Italy, as these conquests were not treated as Roman territory until nearly a century later.]
[SEC. 9.]—LATIFUNDIA.
"After having pillaged the world as praetors or consuls during time of war, the nobles again pillaged their subjects as governors in time of peace;[1] and upon their return to Rome with immense riches they employed them in changing the modest heritage of their fathers into domains vast as provinces. In villas, which they were wont to surround with forests, lakes and mountains ... where formerly a hundred families lived at ease, a single one found itself restrained. In order to increase his park, the noble bought at a small price the farm of an old wounded soldier or peasant burdened with debt, who hastened to squander, in the taverns of Rome, the modicum of gold which he had received. Often he took the land without paying anything.[2] An ancient writer tells us of an unfortunate involved in a law suit with a rich man because the latter, discommoded by the bees of the poor man, his neighbor, had destroyed them. The poor man protested that he wished to depart and establish his swarms elsewhere, but that nowhere was he able to find a small field where he would not again have a rich man for a neighbor. The nabobs of the age, says Columella, had properties which they were unable to journey round on horseback in a day, and an inscription recently found at Viterba, shows that an aqueduct ten miles long did not traverse the lands of any new proprietors.... The small estate gradually disappeared from the soil of Italy, and with it the sturdy population of laborers.... Spurius Ligustinus, a centurian, after twenty-two campaigns, at the age of more than fifty years, did not have for himself, his wife, and eight children more than a jugerum of land and a cabin."[3]
To this masterly sketch quoted from Duruy, we can but add a few facts. Pliny affirms that under Nero only six men possessed the half of Africa.[4] Seneca, who himself possessed an immense fortune, says, concerning the rich men of his time, that they did not content themselves with possessing the lands that formerly had supported an entire people; they were wont to turn the course of rivers in order to conduct them through their possessions. They[5] desired even to embrace seas within their vast domains. We must here, it is true, make some allowance for rhetoric. So, too, in the writings of Petronius, some allowance for satire must be made, where he represents the clerk of Trimalchio making a report of that which has taken place in a single day upon one of the latter's farms near Cumae. Here on the 7th of the calends[6] of July, were born 30 boys and 40 girls; 500,000 bushels of wheat were harvested and 500 oxen were yoked. The clerk goes on to say that a fire had recently broken out in the Gardens of Pompey, when he is interrupted by Trimalchio asking when the Gardens of Pompey had been purchased for him, and is informed that they had been in his possession for a year.[7] So it appears that Trimalchio, in whom Petronius has personified the pride, the greed, and the vices of the rich men of his time, did not know that he was the possessor of a magnificent domain. In another place Petronius causes Trimalchio to say that everything which could appeal to the appetite of his companions is raised upon one of his farms which he has not yet visited and which is situated in the neighborhood of Terracina and Tarentum, towns[8] which are separated by a distance of 300 miles. Finally, led on by his immoderate desire to augment his riches and increase his possessions, the hero of Petronius asks but one thing before he dies, i.e., to add Apulia[9] to his domains; he, however, admits that he would not take it amiss to join Sicily to some lands which he owned in that locality or to be able, should envy not check him, to pass into Africa[10] without departing from his own possessions. All this has a basis of fact. Trimalchio would never have been created, had not the favorite freedmen of Nero crushed the people by their luxury, debauches, and scandals.