[65] We have shown elsewhere (_Recherches sur quelques problèmes d’histoire_, pp. 269-289) the mistakes which have been committed as to the words _agri_, _occupantur_, _cultores_, _arva_, _mutant_, _superest ager_. On the special meaning of _occupare agrum_, to put land to account by placing slaves upon it, see Columella, ii. 9; ii. 10; ii. 11; ii. 13; v. 5; v. 10; notice especially these two passages, Columella, i. 3: occupatos nexu civium aut ergastulis, and _Code_ of Justinian, ix. 49, 7: quot mancipia in prædiis occupatis teneantur. As to the meaning of _cultores_, we must remember the _coloni_ of whom Tacitus has spoken in the previous chapter. For the meaning of _arva_, see Varro, _De re rustica_, i. 29: arvum est quod aratum est; _ibid._, i. 13: boves ex arvo reducti; i. 19: ad jugera ducenta arvi, boum jugo duo; cf. Cicero, _De republ._, v. 2, and especially Digest, L., 15, 4. _Mutare_ does not mean to exchange among themselves; to express that meaning _inter se_ would have been needed: _mutare_ by itself is the frequentative of _movere_, and means to shift. The Germans shifted their tillage, and tilled now one part, now another of the estate. If we translate each of the words of Tacitus literally, especially if we pay attention to the context and read the entire chapter, _nec pomaria_, _nec hortos_, ... _sola seges_, etc., we see that Tacitus is describing the method of cultivation among the Germans, and that it does not occur to him to say whether they were or were not acquainted with the system of private ownership. Do not forget, moreover, that chapter xxvi. follows chapter xxv., where Tacitus has said that the soil is cultivated by slaves, each paying certain dues to his master. After a sort of parenthesis on the freedmen, he returns to these _cultores_. He shows how they farm, and he blames their method. The chapter ought to be closely scanned and translated word for word with the meaning each word had in the time of Tacitus, and not hastily rendered to suit some preconceived idea. [66] _In sortem alterius fuerit ingressus._ In the documents from the 4th to the 8th century the word _sors_ meant a private property: _sors patrimonium significat_, says the grammarian Festus. The contribution of corn is proportional, says the Theodosian code, to the extent of the properties, _pro modo sortium_, xi. 1,15. Cassiodorus, _Letters_, viii. 26: _sortes propriæ_. Laws of the Visigoths, viii. 8, 5: _sortem suam claudere_, x. 1, 7: _terra in qua sortem non habet_. Salic law, Behrend, p. 112: _Si quis in mansionem aut sortem_. Law of the Burgundians, xlvii. 3: _Filii sortem parentum vel facultatem vindicabunt_; lxxviii.: _Si pater cum filiis sortem suam diviserit_. In all these examples _sors_ signifies property or inheritance. [67] _Lex Alamannorum_, xlv. and xlvi. edit. Pertz, p. 61; edit. Lehmann, pp. 105-106. [68] _Lex Baiuwariorum_, xiii, 9, Pertz, p. 316. [69] _Ibidem_, xii, 8, Pertz, p. 312.