M. de Jubainville compares the whole Gallic territory with the _ager publicus_ of Rome. I do not know whether the learned medievalist has a very clear conception of what the _ager publicus_ really was. The subject is a very difficult one, and requires for its study a good deal of time, much minute research and great familiarity with Roman habits and customs. I do not wish to dwell on this point; and will content myself with saying that the _ager publicus_ was not common land, but property of the State existing side by side with private property. To suppose that in Gaul the State was the master of all the soil and distributed it annually amongst the citizens, is to suppose something absolutely opposed to Roman habits and to the usages of the _ager publicus_. Moreover, it is impossible to find a single line in Cæsar which authorises such a supposition.[253] To sum up: the attempt made by this ingenious scholar to discover community in land amongst the Gauls is supported by no original authorities. When we come to verify his quotations and test his arguments, we see that not one of his quotations bears the sense he attributes to it, and that not one of his facts fits in with a theory of common ownership in land. It is wisest to keep strictly to what Cæsar tells us. [243] “Fere de omnibus controversiis publicis privatisque constituunt.” It is well known that in legal language, the _judicia publica_ are criminal cases; as the term implies, cases which concern crimes punished by a public authority; the _judicia privata_ are those which concern private interests alone, and in which the State is not involved. See on this distinction Paul, _Sententiæ_, I., 5, 2; Ulpian XIII., 2; _Fragmenta Vaticana_, 197 and 326; _Digest_, XLVII., tit. 1 and 2; XLVIII., I.; I., l, l § 6; XXIII., 2, 43, § 11 and 12. To translate _controversiæ publicæ_ in the passage from Cæsar as disputes between two peoples would run counter to the meaning of words. _Publicus_ never means _inter duos populos_. [244] It may be added that the social condition described by Cæsar is irreconcilable with agrarian communism, vi., 13: _in omni Gallia plebs pæne serrorum habetur loco_, etc. Notice the numerous clients of Orgetorix, i., 4; those of Vercingetorix, vii., 4; the many poor, not in the towns, but in the country, _in agris agentes_, vii., 4; the burden of the _tributa_, vi., 13. These traits are not those of a society where the land is common. They point rather to a system of great estates, with the soil in the hands of the magnates. [245] This appears in the _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres_, 1887, pp. 65, _et seq._