[127] Romulus, according to Dionysus of Halicarnassus, sent two colonies to Cænina and Antemnæ, having taken from those two towns the third of their lands. (II. 35.)—In the year 252, the Sabines lost ten thousand acres (jugera) of arable land. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 49.)—A treaty concluded with the Hernici, in 268, deprived them of two-thirds of their territory. (Titus Livius, II. 41.)—“In 413, the Privernates lost two-thirds of their territory; in 416, the Tiburtines and Prenestines lost a part of their territory.” (Titus Livius, VIII. I, 14.)—“In 563, P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica took from the Boians nearly half their territory.” (Titus Livius, XXXVI. 39.)
[128] Appian, Civil Wars, I. vii.—This citation, though belonging to a posterior date, applies nevertheless to the epoch of which we are speaking.
[129] “Servius published an edict to oblige all who had appropriated, under the title of usufructuaries or proprietors, the lands of the public domain, to restore them within a certain time, and, by the same edict, the citizens who possessed no heritage were ordered to bring him their names.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 10.)
[130] “We need not be astonished if the poor prefer the lands of the domain to be distributed (to all the citizens) than to suffer that a small number of the most shameless should remain sole possessors. But if they see that they are taken from those who gather their revenues, and that the public is restored to the possession of its domain, they will cease to be jealous of us, and the desire to see them distributed to each citizen would diminish, when it shall be demonstrated to them that these lands will be of greater utility when possessed in common by the Republic.” (Year of Rome 268.) (Speech of Appius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 73.)
[131] Agannius Urbicus, De Controversiiss agrorum, in the Gromatici veteres, ed. Lachmann, vol. I, p. 82.
[132] Titus Livius, II. 48.
[133] “Lucius Æmilius said that it was just that the common goods should be shared among all the citizens, rather than leave the enjoyment of them to a small number of individuals; that in regard to those who had seized upon the public lands, they ought to be sufficiently satisfied that they had been left to enjoy them during so long a time without being disturbed in their possession, and that if afterwards they were deprived of them, it ill became them to be obstinate in retaining them. He added that, besides the public law acknowledged by general opinion, and according to which the public goods are common to all the citizens, just as the goods of individuals belong to those who have acquired them legitimately, the Senate was obliged, by a special reason, to distribute the lands to the people, since it had passed an ordinance for that purpose already seventeen years ago.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 51.)
[134] Titus Livius, III. 31.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 33 et seq.
[135] “The plebeians complain loudly that their conquests have been taken from them; that it is disgraceful that, having conquered so many lands from the enemy, not the least portion of it remains to them; that the ager publicus is possessed by rich and influential men who take the revenue unjustly, without other title than their power and unexampled acts of violence. They demand finally that, sharing with the patricians all the dangers, they may also have their share in the advantages and profit derived from them.” (Year of Rome 298.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 36.)
[136] “The moment would have been well chosen, after having taken vengeance on the seditious, to propose, in order to soothe people’s minds, the partition of the territory of the Bolani; they would thus have weakened the desire for an agrarian law which would expel the patricians from the public estates they had unjustly usurped. For it was an indignity which cut the people to the heart, this rage of the nobility to retain the public lands they occupied by force, and, above all, their refusal to distribute to the people even the vacant lands recently taken from the enemy, which, indeed, would soon become, like the rest, the prey of some of the nobles,” (Year of Rome 341.) (Titus Livius, IV. 51.)