different from the quiritarian ownership of the patricians. Cicero, who in
his Republic[25] has occupied himself with the ancient constitution of Rome
and has spoken in detail of the division of the lands, always speaks of the
distribution among the citizens without regard to quality of patrician
or plebeian, _divisit viritim civibus_. He has nowhere written that
territorial riches were the exclusive appanage of the patriciate. It must
be confessed, however, that it is doubtful whether he intended to embrace
the plebeians in his _civibus_. For more than two centuries before the time
of Cicero the plebeians had enjoyed the full rights of Roman citizenship,
but for more than that length of time property had been concentrated in
the hands of the aristocracy. This result was the consequence of the Roman
constitution[26] and the establishment of a populous city in the midst of a
narrow surrounding country. Roman policy had never been conducive to this
concentration, and it will hereafter appear that the nobility who had the
chief direction and administration of public affairs had little by little
usurped the property which formed the domain of the state, _i.e. Ager
Publicus_, and swallowed up the revenues due the treasury.

[Footnote 1: Cato, _De Re Rustica_, I, lines 3-8. "Majores nostri ... virum
bonum cum laudabant, ita laudabant, bonum agricolam bonumque colonum.
Amplissime laudari existimabatur, qui ita laudabatur."]

[Footnote 2: Muirhead, _Roman Law_, 36 _et seq_.]

[Footnote 3: Varro, _De Lingua Latina_, V, 143.]

[Footnote 4: Frag, to Digest, 287 and 147 of Title 16, Bk. 50 with notes of
Schultung and Small.]

[Footnote 5: Plutarch's _Romulus_, § 19.]