THK N'KAJ.TIl OK NATIONS.

517

lands, which had been allotted for the maintenance of manydifferent families, into the possession of a single person. Toremedy this disorder, for such it was supposed to be, a lawwas made, restricting the quantity of land which any citizencould possess to live hundred jugera, about three hundredand lifty English acres. This law, however, though we readof its having been executed upon one or two occasions, waseither neglected or evaded, and the inequality of fortunes wenton continually increasing. The greater part of the citizenshad no land, and without it the manners and customs of thosetimes rendered it difficult for a freeman to maintain his inde-pendency. In the present times, though a poor man has noland of his own, if he has a little stock, he may either farm thelands of another, or he may carry on some retail trade; and ifhe has no stock, he may find employment either as a country la-bourer, or as an artificer. But among the ancient Romans thelands of the rich were all cultivated by slaves, who wroughtunderan overseer, who was likewise a slave; so that a poor free-man had little chance of being employed either as a farmer oras a labourer. All trades and manufactures too, even the retailtrade, were carried on by the slaves of the rich for the benefitof their masters, whose wealth, authority, and protection,made it difficult for a poor freeman to maintain the compe-tition against them. The citizens, therefore, who had no land,had scarce any other means of subsistence but the bountiesof the candidates at the annual elections. The tribunes, whenthey had a mind to animate thepeopleagainst the rich and thegreat, put them in mind of the ancient division of lands, andrepresented that law which restricted this sort of private pro-perty as the fundamental law of the republic. The peoplebecame clamorous to get land, and the rich and the great, wemay believe, were perfectly determined not to give them anypart of theirs. To satisfy them in some measure, therefore,they frequently proposed to send out anew colony. But con-quering Rome was, even upon such occasions, under no ne-cessity of turning out her citizens to seek their fortune, if onemay say so, through the wide world, without knowing wherethey were to settle. She assigned them lands generally inthe conquered provinces of Italy , where, being within the do-minions ol the republic, they could never form any indepen-dent state; but were at best but a sort of corporation, whichthough it had the power of enacting by-laws for its own go-vernment, was at all times subject to the correction, jurisdic-