privileged in respect to the usufructs of the domains, which proposed
the new arrangement, and that one of its very authors, Gaius Licinius
Stolo, was among the first to be condemned for having exceeded the
agrarian maximum; and we cannot but ask whether the legislators dealt
altogether honourably, and whether they did not on the contrary
designedly evade a solution, really tending to the common benefit,
of the unhappy question of the domains. We do not mean, however, to
express any doubt that the regulations of the Licinian laws, such as
they were, might and did substantially benefit the small farmer and
the day-labourer. It must, moreover, be acknowledged that in the
period immediately succeeding the passing of the law the authorities
watched with at least comparative strictness over the observance of
its rules as to the maximum, and frequently condemned the possessors
of large herds and the occupiers of the domains to heavy fines.

Laws Imposing Taxes--
Laws of Credit

In the system of taxation and of credit also efforts were made with
greater energy at this period than at any before or subsequent to it
to remedy the evils of the national economy, so far as legal measures
could do so. The duty levied in 397 of five per cent on the value of
slaves that were to be manumitted was--irrespective of the fact that
it imposed a check on the undesirable multiplication of freedmen--the
first tax in Rome that was really laid upon the rich. In like manner
efforts were made to remedy the system of credit. The usury laws,
which the Twelve Tables had established,(9) were renewed and gradually
rendered more stringent, so that the maximum of interest was
successively lowered from 10 per cent (enforced in 397) to 5 per cent
(in 407) for the year of twelve months, and at length (412) the taking