A great part of the wealth of the Romans consisted in domains of this kind, and the question will occur to the thoughtful mind how the government was able to keep the most distinguished part of her citizens in a legal position so uncertain and alarming. English law is very different from the Roman in this respect and would decide in favor of the tenant and against the state. It is fairly possible that this uncertainty of tenure tended to render the government more stable and less liable to sudden revolutionary movements, thus having the same effect upon the Roman government which funded debts have upon the nations of to-day. [Footnote 1: Long, _Decline of the Roman Rep_., I, ch. 11.] [Footnote 2: Muirhead, _Roman Law_, 92.] [Footnote 3: Ortolan, _Histoire de la legislation Romaine_, p. 21.] [Footnote 4: Mommsen, I, 131; Arnold, I, 157.] [Footnote 5: Dionysius, IV, 11, Livy.] [Footnote 6: Ihne, I, 175.] [Footnote 7: Ihne, I, 175.] [Footnote 8: Livy, Bk. I, c. 38, with note by Drachenborch; Livy, Bk. VII, c. 31.] [Footnote 9: Siculus Flaccus, _De Conditione Agrorum_, 2, 3: "Ut vero Romani omnium gentium potiti sunt, agros alios ex hoste captos in victorem populum partiti sunt, alios verro agros vendiderunt, ut Sabinorum ager qui dicitur quaestorius."] [Footnote 10: Cicero, in Verrem, II, Bk. 3, § 6.] [Footnote 11: Giraud, _Droit de propriété chez les romains_, 160.] [Footnote 12: Ihne, I, 175.] [Footnote 13: Muirhead, 92; Giraud, 165.] [Footnote 14: Higin., _De Limit. Const. apud Goes. Rei Agr. Script._, pp. 159-160.] [Footnote 15: Giraud, 164.] [Footnote 16: Dionysius, II, 7.] [Footnote 17: Aristotle, _Polit._, [Greek: Z. Keph. th. 7: Anagkaion toinun eis duo merae diaeraesthai taen choran kai ton men einai koinaen, taen de ton idioton.]] [Footnote 18: Giraud, 163.] [Footnote 19: Festus, p. 209, Lindemann; Cicero, ad Att. II, 15; Philipp. V, 7; De Leg. Agr. I, 2, III, 3; De Off. II, 22; Livy, II, 61, IV, 51, 53, VI, 4, 15; Suet. Julius Cæsar, 38; Octavius, 13, 32; Cæsar, De Bell. Civ., I, 17; Orosius, V, 18.] [Footnote 20: Aggenus Urbicus, p. 69, ed. Goes.] [Footnote 21: Giraud, 185-187; Mommsen, I, 110; Ortolan, 227; Hunter, _Roman Law,_ 367.] SEC. 4.--ROMAN COLONIES.