ns of
protecting himself in possession against him; on the contrary, the
granter could eject him at any time when he pleased. The relation
did not necessarily involve any payment on the part of the person
who had the usufruct of the soil to its proprietor; but such
a payment beyond doubt frequently took place and may, as a rule,
have consisted in the delivery of a portion of the produce. The
relation in this case approximated to the lease of subsequent times,
but remained always distinguished from it partly by the absence of
a fixed term for its expiry, partly by its non-actionable character
on either side and the legal protection of the claim for rent depending
entirely on the lessor's right of ejection. It is plain that it
was essentially a relation based on mutual fidelity, which could
not subsist without the help of the powerful sanction of custom
consecrated by religion; and this was not wanting. The institution
of clientship, altogether of a moral-religious nature, beyond
doubt rested fundamentally on this assignation of the profits of
the soil. Nor was the introduction of such an assignation dependent
on the abolition of the system of common tillage; for, just as
after this abolition the individual, so previous to it the clan
might grant to dependents a joint use of its lands; and beyond
doubt with this very state of things was connected the fact that
the Roman clientship was not personal, but that from the outset
the client along with his clan entrusted himself for protection
and fealty to the patron and his clan. This earliest form of Roman
landholding serves to explain how there sprang from the great
landlords in Rome a landed, and not an urban, nobility. As the
pernicious institution of middlemen remained foreign to the Romans,
the Roman landlord found himself not much less chained to his land
than was the tenant and the farmer; he inspected and took part in
everything himself, and the wealthy Roman esteemed it his highest
praise to be reckoned a good landlord. His house was in the country;
in the city he had only a lodging for the purpose of attending to
his business there, and perhaps of breathing the purer air that
prevailed there during the hot season. Above all, however, these
arrangements furnished a moral basis for the relation between the
upper class and the common people, and so materially lessened its
dangers. The free tenants-on-sufferance, sprung from families of
decayed farmers, depend