On the other hand not only was the landed property in all Sicily left untouched—­the principle, that the land out of Italy fell by right of war to the Romans as private property, was still unknown to this century—­but all the Sicilian and Sardinian communities retained self-administration and some sort of autonomy, which indeed was not assured to them in a way legally binding, but was provisionally allowed.  If the democratic constitutions of the communities were everywhere set aside, and in every city the power was transferred to the hands of a council representing the civic aristocracy; and if moreover the Sicilian communities, at least, were required to institute a general valuation corresponding to the Roman census every fifth year; both these measures were only the necessary sequel of subordination to the Roman senate, which in reality could not govern with Greek —­ecclesiae—­, or without a view of the financial and military resources of each dependent community; in the various districts of Italy also the same course was in both respects pursued.

Tenths and Customs
Communities Exempted

But, side by side with this essential equality of rights, there was established a distinction, very important in its effects, between the Italian communities on the one hand and the transmarine communities on the other.  While the treaties concluded with the Italian towns imposed on them a fixed contingent for the army or the fleet of the Romans, such a contingent was not imposed on the transmarine communities, with which no binding paction was entered into at all, but they lost the right of arms,(8) with the single exception that they might be employed on the summons of the Roman praetor for the defence of their own homes.  The Roman government regularly sent Italian troops, of the strength which it had fixed, to the islands; in return for this, a tenth of the field-produce of Sicily, and a toll of 5 per cent on the value of all articles of commerce exported from or imported into the Sicilian harbours, were paid to Rome.  To the islanders these taxes were nothing new.  The imposts levied by the Persian great-king and the Carthaginian republic were substantially of the same character with that tenth; and in Greece also such a taxation had for long been, after Oriental precedent, associated with the -tyrannis- and often also with a hegemony.  The Sicilians had in this way long paid their tenth either to Syracuse or to Carthage, and had been wont to levy customs-dues no longer on their own account.  “We received,” says Cicero, “the Sicilian communities into our clientship and protection in such a way that they continued under the same law under which they had lived before, and obeyed the Roman community under relations similar to those in which they had obeyed their own rulers.”  It is fair that this should not be forgotten; but to continue an injustice is to commit injustice.  Viewed in relation not to the subjects, who merely changed masters, but to