This _Ager Publieus_ was farther increased by towns[4] voluntarily surrendering themselves to Rome without awaiting the iron hand of war. These were commonly mulcted of one-third of their land.[5] "The soil of the country is not the product of labor any more than is water or air. Individual citizens cannot therefore lay any claim to lawful property in land as to anything[6] produced by their own hands." The state in this case, as the representative of the rights and interests of society, decides how the land shall be divided among the members of the community, and the rules laid down by the state to regulate this matter are of the first and highest importance in determining the civil condition of the country and the prosperity of the people. Whenever but one class among the people is privileged to have property in land a most exclusive oligarchy is formed.[7] When the land is held in small portions by a great number and nobody is legally or practically excluded from acquiring land, there we find provided the elements of democracy. According to the strictest right of conquest in antiquity the defeated lost not only their personal freedom, their moveable and landed[8] property, but even life itself. All was at the mercy of the conquerors. In practice a modification of this right took place and in Rome extreme severity was applied only in extreme cases, generally as a punishment for treason.[9] This magnanimity was not rare and it even went so far as to restore the whole of the territory to the people subdued.[10] But let us not suppose that this humanity toward a conquered people sprang from any pity inspired by their forlorn condition. It was due merely to the interest of the conquerors themselves. The conquered lands must still be cultivated and the depleted population restored. For this reason the conquered had generally not only life and freedom left them but also the means of livelihood, _i.e._ some portion of their land. This portion they held subject to no restrictions or services save those levied upon quiritarian property. It was private property to the full legal extent of the expression, thus being in the unlimited disposition of the individual.[11] These people formed the nucleus of the plebeians, the freemen who were members of the Roman state[12] without actually having any political rights. The _Ager Publicus_ was the property of the state and as such could be alienated only by the state.[13] This alienation could be accomplished in two ways: (a). By public sale; (b). By gratuitous distribution. (a). The public sale was merely an auction to the highest bidder and in the later days of the monarchy and early part of the republic, rich plebeians must have become possessed of large tracts of land in this way; the privilege of acquiring property in land having been extended to them some time before the Servian reform.[14]