all ships could be stopped. And even if the site had otherwise been excellent, it was evident that while Rome stood no formidable city could be built within three miles. Those who were unable to maintain themselves when in possession of the fortifications, surely could not build a hostile city on the Sacred Mount, a place not suitable for either defense or commerce.

However astonishing their withdrawal may appear to us, the subsequent conduct attributed to them is still more unreasonable. According to Livy they returned to their homes and their Roman allegiance without release from their debts, without limitation of the rate of interest, without the abolition of debt slavery, without the right of holding office, and marrying into patrician families; and, in short, without anything save a promise that they were to be protected against the consuls by tribunes. But the power of these tribunes was not explicitly defined, and they were to be elected by the centuries which were under the control of the patricians. A greater justification, a more formidable organization, and a more pitiful achievement of a revolutionary party, are not to be found in history. According to Dionysius, the debts were canceled, but even if such a concession was made, it was entirely inadequate to the provocation and to the power of the plebeians.

There is reason to doubt whether the oppression of debt was ever publicly announced by rebels as the main motive of their rebellion. Such an outbreak is unknown in authentic history. If the debtors ever undertook to throw off the political yoke of the creditors, mainly because of the debt, they gave some other pretext for their action. In disorders that had their origin in other sources, debtors have frequently done their utmost to in

crease the confusion for the purpose of obtaining relief from their pecuniary burdens. Such occurrences, however, have been observed not in poor communities, but in great and luxurious cities, such as Rome was in the time of Cicero, and the leaders have been not poor plebeians, but nobles like Catiline, who had squandered fortunes and were willing to die in the attempt to become masters of the state.

In a rude and warlike community, as Rome was about 500 B. C., the plebeians generally would not have credit enough to borrow much money, and, indeed, at that time the Romans had not yet begun to coin money. The great majority of the debtors among the plebeians would naturally be not borrowers but tenants unable to pay their rent, a class which Livy and Dionysius do not mention as having anything to do with this revolution. Nor do these authors say anything of patricians, either insolvent or embarrassed by their debts, though we know that the nobles of ancient Rome, like those of modern England, frequently borrowed large sums.

We have now examined both the motive and the method of this revolution of republican Rome in 495 B. C., and we have found that neither deserves credence. We cannot safely say more of it than that perhaps there was a revolution in that year, and that in it perhaps the office of tribune of the people had its origin.

SEC. 434. Tribunes.-The office of plebeian tribune was treated as a concession to the commoners whom it was designed to protect. The tribune then or afterwards acquired authority to stop immediately and finally by his spoken order legislative action of every kind, either in the senate or in the centuriate assembly, and administrative and judicial proceedings of many kinds. His

power was so great that he could paralyze the government. He had extensive judicial powers; he could arrest, try, and punish all, even consuls, who violated his legitimate orders. His person was inviolable, and it was a crime to interrupt him when speaking officially. His dwelling, which was also his office, was open at all hours of day and night, so that the plebeians should always be able to find a protector. His authority did not extend beyond the walls, and in the city was negative rather than positive. Its main purpose was to check the arbitrary conduct of the consuls. He could forbid the enactment of laws, or counting of votes in elections, and obstruct the execution of consular orders or regulations, but he could not prevent the enforcement of rights clearly defined in laws fully adopted by the senate and people.

The patricians could at any time deprive the tribunes of power by the appointment of a dictator, or by the adoption of a senatorial resolution instructing the consuls to provide for the safety of the republic, and both these measures appeared frequently in the history of Rome. In either case martial law became dominant, and the presiding magistrate acquired an authority in the city similar to that which he held at the head of an army in the field, and with less responsibility, for he could not be called to account subsequently for his official acts.

The tribunes were attended by bailiffs, who executed their orders and were assisted by plebeian ædiles, who had charge of the official records of the plebeians' assemblages, including those resolutions of the senate transmitted to the plebeians for their official approval.

SEC. 435. Agrarianism.-The first agrarian excitement of Rome, in 486 B. C., was succeeded by many others, which occurred at intervals for more than three centuries

and a half. About these troubles, as about many other events in the historical as well as in the legendary period, no Roman historian wrote with fullness and precision, and, therefore, we must depend for our information mainly on inferences and conjectures.

Rome confiscated one-third or more of the territory which she conquered in Italy, and then granted this confiscated portion to her citizens as owners in fee, or tenants at will; the tenancy being accompanied with the obligation of paying rent, which was in coin, or cattle, for the use of common pasture, one-tenth of the crop for land in grain and one-fifth of the crop for vineyard, or olive orchard. The rent charges were so low that they left a good profit to the tenants. But the state lists of the confiscated tracts were so defective that in extensive districts there was no official record of the limits of the public property, and the claims of the occupants that they were ownners could not be disproved.

The rule of the old aristocracy, that the public land. was reserved for the use of the nobles, remained in full force in the early years of the mixed aristocracy, but was afterwards repeatedly modified by special enactments, called agrarian laws, which provided that small tracts, usually three or five acres, should be assigned to such commoners as wished to settle on them. These laws diminished the areas open to the nobles, but did not otherwise reduce their privileges. Without direct permission from the legislative department of the government, and with some informal approval of a local official, the noble could take possession of a large tract, a thousand acres or more, while the commoners could not get a score of acres without a special law, a precise survey, and careful supervision by state commissioners,

A district of public land when first thrown open to citizens was usually on the border of the state, near to foreign territory, and still occupied in part by the former inhabitants, who had been vanquished, and in part, at least, despoiled of their possessions. Many of these people took every safe opportunity to injure the new settlers. Neither life nor property was secure. The Romans could not venture to dwell in small families remote from each other. For protection against marauders and invaders, it was important that there should be numerous strongholds in which the women and children should be kept, or to which, on brief notice, they could be transferred; and that the land should be used rather for pasturage than for tillage. Herds could be driven away on the approach of an enemy, while grain, fruit trees, and vines, because of their stationary character, were in greater danger of destruction. The noble estate of a thousand acres could be used advantageously for pasturage; the commoner's lot of five acres could not.

After a generation or two the property became more productive. The houses destroyed, and the orchards and vineyards cut down, at the time of the conquest, were restored. The hostile inhabitants had disappeared. The frontier having moved forward, perhaps fifty or a hundred miles, there was far less danger of invasion. When the land became desirable to the small farmer, then the commoners claimed a share of the district which they or their fathers, as the bulk of the army, had conquered.

To such demands the nobles made bitter opposition. They were quite willing that any citizen should have a piece of public land, proportioned to his social rank, but wanted him to take it before it had become subject to the prescriptive right of patrician occupation. When the