the Latins could only
be taken up anew in connection with the very difficult question as
to the extension of Roman citizenship. On the other hand he took an
important step beyond the agrarian law of Tiberius, when he proposed
the establishment of colonies in Italy--at Tarentum, and more
especially at Capua--and by that course rendered the domain-land,
which had been let on lease by the state and was hitherto excluded
from distribution, liable to be also parcelled out, not, however,
according to the previous method, which excluded the founding of new
communities,(12) but according to the colonial system. Beyond doubt
these colonies were also designed to aid in permanently defending the
revolution to which they owed their existence. Still more significant
and momentous was the measure, by which Gaius Gracchus first proceeded
to provide for the Italian proletariate in the transmarine territories
of the state. He despatched to the site on which Carthage had stood
6000 colonists selected perhaps not merely from Roman burgesses but
also from the Italian allies, and conferred on the new town Junonia
the rights of a Roman burgess-colony. The foundation was important,
but still more important was the principle of transmarine emigration
thereby laid down. It opened up for the Italian proletariate a
permanent outlet, and a relief in fact more than provisional; but
it certainly abandoned the principle of state-law hitherto in force,
by which Italy was regarded as exclusively the governing, and the
provincial territory as exclusively the governed, land.

Modifications of the Penal Law

To these measures having immediate reference to the great question of
the proletariate there was added a series of enactments, which arose
out of the general tendency to introduce principles milder and more
accordant with the spirit of the age than the antiquated severity of
the existing constitution. To this head belong the modifications in
the military system. As to the length of the period of service there
existed under the ancient law no other limit, except that no citizen
was liable to ordinary service in the field before completing his
seventeenth or after completing his forty-sixth year. When, in
consequence of the occupation of Spain, the service began to become
permanent,(13) it seems to have been first legally enacted that any
one who had been in the field for six successive years acquired thereby
a right to discharge, although th