had never given up its right to the _ager publicus_, although it had not exercised it for a long time. The law was quite clear; yet as it had not been enforced for ages, it might be said on the other side, that it was only common equity not to root out an old abuse at once, and thus wound many interests. The rich might plead, that “when C. Flaminius made his agrarian law to apply to the new conquests only, he thereby tacitly acknowledged what had hitherto been held by right of possession; moreover when the loan was contracted in the war with Hannibal the _ager publicus_ was pledged to us, and has thus become our property.” A hundred years had already passed since then; some of the estates had also been laid waste during the war; in the full trust that every one would remain in possession of what belonged to him, they had planted them anew,[72] they had raised buildings on them, they had drained fens: and now they were to sacrifice all this, and to be turned out of what was their own. Of purer intentions than Tiberius Gracchus, no man could ever have been: even they have owned it, who a long time after, blinded by party spirit, have railed against this undertaking; nay, Cicero himself, whose generous heart always gets the better of him whenever he views a subject with unprejudiced eyes, calls him _sanctissimus homo_. The statesmen of old were not such as our fancy would generally lead us to paint them; but they had the self-same ends in view as those of our times: Tiberius Gracchus saw clearly, that, if things were to go on in this way, utter ruin must follow, and Rome would fall into despotism. Had he now wished to enforce the Licinian rogations to the very letter, this would indeed have been just in law, but in reality most unfair. He therefore laid down the rule, that every one should be allowed to have, and that as freehold property, five hundred _jugera_ for himself, and two hundred and fifty for every son who was still _in patria potestate_, though as it seems, not for more than two of these (for so must the passage in the Epitome of Livy be interpreted according to the correct reading);[73] and moreover, that buildings erected on that part of the land which was to be given up, should be valued, and an indemnity paid to those who had owned them. Thus, instead of infringing upon vested rights, he, on the contrary, converted a mere tenure at will into a regular freehold which no man could touch. One case, however, Gracchus had not considered: many had bought the _ager publicus_ of the former occupant for ready money, or had taken it at its value as their share of an inheritance; these could not be expected to lose their capital. When this had happened, the overplus ought to have been bought in at a fair price by the state, and then there would have been nothing to say against the law: the great wealth of the state would have certainly sufficed for this, as there could not, after all,