d most
useful to the state if it could have been executed, another tribune not
long after [Greek: oupolu husteron] abolished even the vectigalia."[20]
This is evidently the same law which Cicero mentions as that of Spurius
Thorius and as he also mentions him in another place (_De Or_., II, 70,
284), we may possibly accept him as the author.

There are still extant some fragments of a bronze tablet which contains
upon its smooth surface the Lex Repetundarum and has cut upon its rough[21]
back an agrarian law. These fragments were discovered in the 16th century
among the collections in the Museum of Cardinal[22] Bembo at Padua.
Sigonius attempted the reconstruction of this law and after him Haubold and
Klentze, but Rudorff has completed the reconstruction as far as possible
and made the law the subject of an interesting essay.[23] Mommsen has a
commentary in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum[24] upon this law. From
all these sources the date of this law has been established almost beyond
doubt as 111. Sigonius assigned it to Spurius Thorius, and, as the name is
immaterial and[25] his arguments moreover for this title are not easily set
aside, we can do no better than adopt it.

_Argument of the Lex Thoria._[26]

The law evidently consists of three parts, although the rubricae are
absent.

I. De agro publico p. R. in Italia (1-43).

II. De agro publico p. R. in Africa (44--95).

III. De agro publico p. R. qui Corinthorum fuit (96-105).

I. On the Ager Publicus in Italy.

This part may be divided roughly into three sections: (1) Lines 1-24,
defining _ager privatus_; (2) 24-32, defining _ager publicus_; (3) 33-43,
on disputed cases.

It thus embraces the first forty-three lines of the law, and is concerned
with the public land of Italy, from the Rubicon southwards. It commences
by referring to the condition of this land in the year 133, when Tiberius
Gracchus was tribune. The law does not affect to touch any thing which
had been enacted concerning this land prior to 133. It either confirms or
alters what had been done in 133, and since that time. All the public land
which was exempted from the operation of the Sempronian laws, _i.e._, _Ager
Campanus_ and _Ager Stellatis_, was also excluded from the operation of the
_lex Thoria_.

(1) The first ten lines of the law relate to that part of the ager publicus
which was occupied before the time of the Gracchi, if the amount of such
land did not exceed the maxi