allotment-commission did for the Roman
burgesses. Whether it multiplied the farms among the Italians in
the same proportion maybe doubted; at any rate what it did accomplish
yielded a great and beneficent result. It is true that this
result was not achieved without various violations of respectable
interests and existing rights. The allotment-commission, composed
of the most decided partisans, and absolute judge in its own cause,
proceeded with its labours in a reckless and even tumultuary fashion;
public notices summoned every one, who was able, to give information
regarding the extent of the domain-lands; the old land-registers were
inexorably referred to, and not only was occupation new and old
revoked without distinction, but in various cases real private
property, as to which the holder was unable satisfactorily to prove
his tenure, was included in the confiscation. Loud and for the most
part well founded as were the complaints, the senate allowed the
distributors to pursue their course; it was clear that, if the
domain question was to be settled at all, the matter could not
be carried through without such unceremonious vigour of action.

Its Suspension by Scipio Aemilianus

But this acquiescence had its limit. The Italian domain-land was not
solely in the hands of Roman burgesses; large tracts of it had been
assigned in exclusive usufruct to particular allied communities by
decrees of the people or senate, and other portions had been occupied
with or without permission by Latin burgesses. The allotment-
commission at length attacked these possessions also. The resumption
of the portions simply occupied by non-burgesses was no doubt allowable
in formal law, and not less presumably the resumption of the domain-land
handed over by decrees of the senate or even by resolutions of the
burgesses to the Italian communities, since thereby the state by no
means renounced its ownership and to all appearance gave its grants
to communities, just as to private persons, subject to revocation.
But the complaints of these allied or subject communities, that Rome
did not keep the settlements that were in force, could not be simply
disregarded like the complaints of the Roman citizens injured by the
action of the commissioners. Legally the former might be no better
founded than the latter; but, while in the latter case the matter
at stake was the private interests of members of the state, in
reference to the Latin possessi