The general notion of the Italian nations was this, that there is an indissoluble relation between the land and the right of citizenship; that every kind of ownership in the soil is derived from the state alone. The soil is merely the substratum on which the preconceived idea of the civil organization rests. There is a great similarity in this to the feudal system. According to strict feudal law, there is no land whatever but what has a liege-lord. All fiefs derive from the prince as the lord paramount, and then follow the mesne tenures. In point of fact, this idea has never indeed been carried out in its full meaning. Another analogous case is in the East, especially in the East Indies, where we find the sovereign the real owner of the soil, and the peasant’s tenure to be only at will (_precario_). Thus also among the Italian nations, all right of property in the soil is from the soil. We read in Appian a statement, of which it is evident that it has not sprung from his own intellectual resources, but that it is an extract from the history of the Gracchi by Posidonius, who was not inferior to Polybius, and whom he uses as his chief authority for that period, as he did Dionysius before, and then Polybius, Fabius, and at last, in all probability, Rutilius. Now, if we see it mentioned by him, that the _ager publicus_ was partly turned into colonies and demesnes, and partly sold or let on lease (the latter notice is found in Plutarch only), we may ask ourselves, How was it possible that difficulties should have arisen on this subject? The Roman republic had only to lay down the law, that no one should possess more than a certain number of lots, and all the evil consequences were prevented. The fact is that Appian and Plutarch misunderstood the ambiguous expression of their predecessor. There is no question of any letting on lease; but a tax was laid on the estates, the tithe (_decuma_), from corn; the fifth (_quinta_), from fruit; and from every thing else in proportion. If, then, the corn was taken in kind, the state was obliged to establish great storehouses; for the cattle it had to pay the pasturage; so that of course the revenue was different in different years. A new system was therefore adopted of letting out the revenue from those taxes to _publicani_. The political forms of the Romans have almost always an analogy in the Greek constitutions, and so has often the civil law; but with regard to the _jus agrarium_ the Romans stand alone. The Greek state made conquests and founded colonies, but the _possessio agri publici_ is unknown to that people: in one instance only does any thing like it happen. We see from Xenophon’s Anabasis that he devoted an estate at Scillus to the Artemis of Ephesus; and that the temple did not cause the estate to be let on lease, but received the tithe from it, and that this was farmed. As the victim was never offered as ὁλόκαυστον, but a part of it only was burnt in honour of the god;