[246] M. de Jubainville has translated _controversiæ publicæ_, as if it were _controversiæ inter duos populos_. I know of no example in Latin literature where the word _publicus_ has this sense. In Suetonius, _Augustus_, 29, the _judicia publica_ are certainly not suits between peoples: they are criminal suits. When Cicero, defending Roscius of Ameria, says he is conducting his first _causa publica_, it is clear that he is not arguing for one people against another. He is defending Roscius, who is accused of parricide: it is a criminal proceeding. [247] Cæsar, vi. 22: _Nec quisquam (apud Germanos)_ FINES habet proprios. _Ibidem: ne latos_ FINES _parare studeant, potentioresque humiliores possessionibus expellant_. [248] Or else the same thing is implied by the turn of the sentence, i. 5: _Helvetii a finibus suis exeunt_; iv. 3: _quum Suevi Ubios finibus expellere non possent_; vi. 23: _extra fines cujusque civitatis_; v. 16: _fines regni sui_; v. 27: _Ambiorix tutum iter per fines suos pollicetur_. By a natural transition, _fines_ comes to mean sometimes, not only the boundaries, but also the territory itself, vi. 42: _ut Ambiorigis fines depopularentur_. [249] Cicero, _Topica_, 10: _Si de finibus controversia est, fines agrorum esse videntur_. [250] D’Arbois de Jubainville, in the _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions_, 1887, reprint, pp. 4-22. [251] Gaius iii. 124: _Appellatione pecuniæ omnes res in lege significantur ... fundum vel hominem._... _Digest_, L. 16, 222: _pecuniæ nomine non solum numerata pecunia, sed omnes res tam soli quam mobiles continentur_. Cf. S. Augustine, _De Discipl. Christ._, i.: _omnia quorum domini sumus pecunia vocantur; servus, ager, arbor, pecus, pecunia dicitur_. [252] _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions_, session of June 8, 1886, reprint, p. 6. [253] M. de Jubainville does not translate latin texts very exactly. For example, if he sees in Cæsar that no German possesses “agri modum certum,” he immediately says that “this _ager_ must be the _ager publicus_; because in Rome _modus agri_ was the technical expression for the _ager publicus_.” But where has he seen that? He may read in Varro, _de re rustica_, i. 14, the words _de modo agri_, which incontestably mean “concerning the extent of a private property.” He will find the same expression in Varro, i. 18, where the writer says that the number of rural slaves ought to be proportionate to the extent of the domain. And again he will find the jurisconsult Paul, in the _Digest_, xviii., 1. 40, using _modum agri_ for the area of an estate which an individual has just bought. To prove that _ager_ by itself means _ager publicus_ he cites the _lex Thoria_; without noticing that in that law the _ager publicus_ is mentioned eleven times, and that _ager_ does not once stand for the public land unless accompanied by _publicus_ or _populi_. _Conclusion._