was probably first adopted in Rome after the conquest of the Achaean
League (B.C. 146), when Greece became a Roman province. It was carried
into Carthage B.C. 145, and into Spain and Portugal about B.C. 133,
when those countries fell beneath the Roman arms. Whenever this
occurred the first act of the conquerors was to assume the ownership
of the land. They then leased it on emphyteusis, either to
the original occupiers, to their own soldiers, or to settlers
("carpet-baggers"). The rent was called _vectigal_, and decurions
(corporals in the army) were usually employed to collect it and
administer the lands.

Syria, Greece, Carthage, and the Iberian Peninsula were the first
countries to succumb to the Roman arms outside of Italy. These
conquests all occurred within the space of fifty-seven years (from 190
to 133 B.C.), and this was doubtless the period when emphyteusis was
first employed upon an extensive scale. Originally, the tenants
were liable to have their rents increased, and to be evicted at the
pleasure of the state, and thus lose the benefit of any improvements
effected by them. The result was, that no improvements were effected.
The forests were cut down, the orchards destroyed, the lands exhausted
by incessant cropping; and by the beginning of the present era the
entire coasts of the Mediterranean were exploited.

This great historical fact is replete with significance--not only to
Portugal, but also to the rest of the world, even to America, which,
by abandoning its public lands to the rapacity of monopolists and the
vandalism of ignorant immigrants, is preparing for itself a future
filled with forebodings of evil.

The ruin of the lands of Carthage, Spain, etc. eventually hastened the