was founded there in 636, the oldest transmarine burgess-city in the Roman empire, which, in spite of manifold attacks by the government party and in spite of a proposal directly made by the senate to abolish it, permanently held its ground, protected, as it probably was, by the mercantile interests that were concerned.  But, apart from this exception—­in its isolation not very important—­the government was uniformly successful in preventing the assignation of land out of Italy.

The Italian domain-question was settled in a similar spirit.  The Italian colonies of Gaius, especially Capua, were cancelled, and such of them as had already been planted were again broken up; only the unimportant one of Tarentum was allowed to subsist in the form of the new town Neptunia placed alongside of the former Greek community.  So much of the domains as had already been distributed by non-colonial assignation remained in the hands of the recipients; the restrictions imposed on them by Gracchus in the interest of the commonwealth—­the ground-rent and the prohibition of alienation—­had already been abolished by Marcus Drusus.  With reference on the other hand to the domains still possessed by right of occupation—­which, over and above the domain-land enjoyed by the Latins, must have mostly consisted of the estates left with their holders in accordance with the Gracchan maximum(2)—­it was resolved definitively to secure them to those who had hitherto been occupants and to preclude the possibility of future distribution.  It was primarily from these lands, no doubt, that the 36,000 new farm-allotments promised by Drusus were to have been formed; but they saved themselves the trouble of inquiring where those hundreds of thousands of acres of Italian domain-land were to be found, and tacitly shelved the Livian colonial law, which had served its purpose;—­only perhaps the small colony of Scolacium (Squillace) may be referred to the colonial law of Drusus.  On the other hand by a law, which the tribune of the people Spurius Thorius carried under the instructions of the senate, the allotment-commission was abolished in 635, and there was imposed on the occupants of the domain-land a fixed rent, the proceeds of which went to the benefit of the populace of the capital—­apparently by forming part of the fund for the distribution of corn; proposals going still further, including perhaps an increase of the largesses of grain, were averted by the judicious tribune of the people Gaius Marius.  The final step was taken eight years afterwards (643), when by a new decree of the people(3) the occupied domain-land was directly converted into the rent-free private property of the former occupants.  It was added, that in future domain-land was not to be occupied at all, but was either to be leased or to lie open as public pasture; in the latter case provision was made by the fixing of a very low maximum of ten head of large and fifty head of small cattle, that the large herd-owner should not practically exclude