AGRARIAN LAWS.--As to the Agrarian laws and the question of debts, they soon became an incessant cause of agitation. The kings, with the conquered lands, had formed a domain of the State (_ager publicus_), one of its principal resources,[125] and generously distributed part of it to the poor citizens.[126] Generally, they took from the conquered peoples two-thirds of their land.[127] Of these two-thirds, “the cultivated part,” says Appian, “was always adjudged to the new colonists, either as a gratuitous grant, or by sale, or by lease paying rent. As to the uncultivated part, which, as a consequence of war, was almost always the most considerable, it was not the custom to distribute it, but the enjoyment of it was left to any one willing to clear and cultivate it, with a reservation to the State of the tenth part of the harvest and a fifth part of the fruits. A similar tax was levied upon those who bred cattle, large or small (in order to prevent the pasture land from increasing in extent to the detriment of the arable land). This was done in view of the increase of the Italic population, which was judged at Rome the most laborious, and to have allies of their own race. But the measure produced a result contrary to that which was expected from it. The rich appropriated to themselves the greatest part of the undistributed lands, and reckoning that the long duration of their occupation would permit nobody to expel them, they bought when they found a seller, or took by force from their neighbouring lesser proprietors their modest heritages, and thus formed vast domains, instead of the mere fields which they had themselves cultivated before.”[128] The kings had always sought to put a curb on these usurpations,[129] and perhaps it was a similar attempt which cost Servius Tullius his life. But after the fall of the kingly power, the patricians, having become more powerful, determined to preserve the lands which they had unjustly seized.[130] And it must be acknowledged, as they supported the greatest share of the burthen of war and taxation, they had a better claim than the others to the conquered lands; they thought, moreover, that the colonies were sufficient to support an agricultural population, and they acted rather as State farmers than as proprietors of the soil. According to the public law, indeed, the _ager publicus_ was inalienable, and we read in an ancient author:--“Lawyers deny that the soil which has once begun to belong to the Roman people, can ever, by usage or possession, become the property of anybody else in the world.”[131]