This _jus agrarium_ is of so much the greater importance for me as it first led me to critical researches on Roman history, whilst before that I had occupied myself more with Greek antiquities. When as a youth I read Plutarch’s parallels and Appian, the system of the _lex agraria_ was quite a riddle to me. It was thought to have really been a violation of property, which it was to limit to a certain standard, so that he who had more than five hundred _jugera_ was deprived of the surplus, by which means an increase of the plebeian holdings was created at the expense of the patrician proprietors. This exposition of the law in such an extreme sense met with much applause. From Machiavell, as he lived in a revolutionary age, and in his opinion the end sanctified the means; and not less from Montesquieu on the other hand, who looked upon the repetition of the past as a thing which was out of the question, since in his time a revolution was still as far off as possible. His example shows how bold speculative minds may become in relations which are unknown to them, and which seem impossible. At that time, revolutionary ideas, in an apparently quite innocent manner, were generally current, even among men who in the revolution itself went over to the extreme opposite side. As Plutarch and Appian expressly state that the law applied to the γῆ δημοσία only, it was evident that something else must have been meant by it. The first who thought here of the _ager publicus_ was Heyne, in a programme the occasion for which was taken from the revolutionary confiscations; yet the question, What then was the _ager publicus_? was not cleared up, as Heyne so often had a general notion of the truth which he but rarely worked out. Afterwards also, the historical writers who treated of the Gracchi were still completely in the dark with regard to it. Once upon a time, when I did not yet see my way into these riddles, I asked the great F. A. Wolf his opinion on it. Yet he, with all the distinguished qualities of his mind, had this fault, that he sought to have the credit of knowing every thing, and then gave himself the air of not wishing to commit himself. He too did not know how to get over this difficulty. I was brought to the subject by chance. In Holstein at that time bondage was abolished. Instead of the peasants, serfs as well as freemen, having hereditary abodes on the estates as formerly, their possessions were taken from them, and changed into tenant farms, whilst they themselves were arbitrarily transferred to small and worse farms. This was quite abominable. Even where there were no serfs, the same measures were now to be enforced. I called to Heaven against this injustice, and came to raise the question,--“What right have they to do this?” On this occasion I was led to inquire into the nature of tenure at will, and traced it among various nations; and this gave me the key to the Roman _jus agrarium_.