But the political import of this measure is considerable. By restricting to narrow limits all the land of Italy to which the State could make a claim, it altered the character of agrarian agitation for the future. It did not indeed fulfil its possible object of obviating such measures; but it rendered the vested interests of all Italian cultivators secure, with the exception of the lessees of the leased domain, who perhaps had no claim to permanence of tenure. This domain was represented chiefly by the Campanian land: and the reformer who would make this territory his prey, injured the finances of the State more than the interests of the individual. If he desired more, he must seek it either in the foreign domains of Rome or by the adoption of some scheme of land purchase. Assignment of lands in particular districts of Italy or in the provinces naturally took the form of colonisation, and this is the favourite shape assumed by the agrarian schemes of the future. Rome was still to witness many fierce controversies as to the merits of the policy of colonial expansion, and as to the wisdom of employing public property and public revenues to this end; the rights of the conqueror to the lands of his vanquished fellow-citizens were also to be cruelly asserted, and the civil wars also invited a species of brigandage for the attainment of possession which too often replaced the judgments of the courts; but never again do we find a regular political warfare waged between the rich and the poor for the possession of territories to which each of the disputants laid claim. The storm which had burst on the Roman world with the land law of Tiberius Gracchus had now spent its force. It had undoubtedly produced a great change on the face of Italy; but this was perhaps more striking in appearance than in reality; neither the work of demolition, nor the opportunities offered for renewal, attained the completeness which they had presented in the reformer's dreams.