for purchase, sale, and succession. [Sidenote: Commons.] 4. A portion
was kept as common pasture land for those to whom the land had been
given or sold, or by whom it was occupied and those who used it paid
'scriptura,' or a tax of so much per head on the beasts, for whose
grazing they sent in a return. This irregular system was fruitful in
evil. It suited the patres with whom it originated, for they were
for a time the sole gainers by it. Without money it must have been
hopeless to occupy tracts distant from Rome. The poor man who did so
would either involve himself in debt, or be at the mercy of his richer
neighbours, whose flocks would overrun his fields, or who might oust
him altogether from them by force, and even seize him himself and
enroll him as a slave. The rich man, on the other hand, could use
such land for pasture, and leave the care of his flocks and herds
to clients and slaves. [Sidenote: This irregular system the germ of
latifundia.] So originated those 'latifundia,' or large farms, which
greatly contributed to the ruin of Rome and Italy. The tilled land
grew less and with it dwindled the free population and the recruiting
field for the army. Gangs of slaves became more numerous, and were
treated with increased brutality; and as men who do not work for their
own money are more profuse in spending it than those who do, the
extravagance of the Roman possessors helped to swell the tide of
luxury, which rose steadily with foreign conquest, and to create in
the capital a class free in name indeed, but more degraded, if less
miserable, than the very slaves, who were treated like beasts through
Italy. It is not certain whether anyone except a patrician could claim
'occupation' as a right; but, as the possessors could in any case
sell the land to plebeians, it fell into the hands of rich men,
to whichever class they belonged, both at Rome, and in the Roman
colonies, and the Municipia; and as it was never really their
property--'dominium'--but the property of the State, it was a constant