It contained the following provisions: To sell, with certain exceptions,[938] the territories recently conquered, and some other domains but little productive to the State; devoting the proceeds to the purchase, by private contract, of lands in Italy which were to be divided among the indigent citizens; to cause to be nominated, according to the customary mode for the election of grand pontiff--that is, by seventeen tribes, drawn by lot from the thirty-five--ten commissioners or decemvirs, to whom should be left, for five years, the power, absolute and without control, of distributing or alienating the domains of the Republic and private properties wherever they liked. No one could be appointed who was not present in Rome, which excluded Pompey, and the authority of the decemvirs was to be sanctioned by a curiate law. To them alone was intrusted the right to decide what belonged to the State and what to individuals. The lands of the public domain which should not be alienated were to be charged with a considerable impost.[939] The decemvirs had also the power of compelling all the generals, Pompey excepted, to account for the booty and money received during war, but not yet deposited in the treasury, or employed upon some monument. They were allowed to found colonies anywhere they thought proper, particularly in the territory of Stella, and in the _ager_ of Campania, where five thousand Roman citizens were to be established. In a word, the administration of the revenues and the resources of the State came almost wholly into their hands; they had, moreover, their lictors; they could take the omens, and choose amongst the knights two hundred persons to execute their decrees in the provinces, and these were without appeal. This project offered inconveniences, but also great advantages. Rullus, certainly, was to blame for not designating all the places where he wished to establish colonies; for making two exemptions, one favourable, the other unfavourable to Pompey; for assigning to the decemvirs powers too extensive, tending to arbitrary acts and speculations: nevertheless, his project had an important political aim. The public domain, encroached upon by usurpations or by the colonies of Sylla, had almost disappeared. The law was to re-constitute it by the sale of conquered territories. On the other side, the lands confiscated in great number by Sylla, and given or sold at a paltry price to his partisans, had suffered a general depreciation, for the ownership was liable to be contested, and they no longer found purchasers. The Republic, while desirous of relieving the poorer class, had thus an interest in raising the price of these lands and in securing the holders. The project of Rullus was, in fact, a veritable law of indemnity. There are injustices which, sanctioned by time, ought also to be sanctioned by law, in order to extinguish the causes of dissension, by restoring their security to existing things, and its value to property.