39 



especially when we read that these same men endeavoured to amass 

 large tracts of land by ejectments and all sorts of unfair and cruel 

 dealings. 



Looking, then, at the peculiar circumstances of the Roman Plebeians, 

 and bearing in mind what has been said in the first portion of this 

 paper respecting the tenure of land in other countries, the most pro- 

 bable and the simplest solution of the difficulty that presents itself in 

 the case of the Plebeians is this, to suppose that they were not free- 

 holders, but tenants of the Patricians, enjoying indeed an hereditary 

 right of possession of their respective holdings, but no full ownership, 

 and bound to certain annual payments, which being exacted rigorously 

 and arbitrarily, plunged them into debt, rendered their social position 

 most precarious, and placed them constantly more or less at the mercy 

 of their creditors. 



If there were no historical proofs to establish the truth of this theory, 

 it might nevertheless be deemed sufficiently probable by the facility with 

 which it explains the extraordinary and otherwise unintelligible pheno- 

 mena to which it refers, provided always that there is no decided 

 evidence against it ; but fortunately there are many traces scattered over 

 a variety of documents which, collected, placed side by side, and correctly 

 explained, establish most satisfactorily the theory which I have advanced ; 

 as satisfactorily at least as the antiquarian can expect to prove an his- 

 torical fact and social arrangements of an age of which he has only 

 second or third hand accounts, and none that enter systematically into 

 an exposition of internal political organisation. The limits of the pre- 

 sent paper do not allow an enumeration and examination of this scat- 

 tered evidence, which I must therefore reserve for another opportunity ; 

 but I cannot, with satisfaction to myself, conclude without at least cur- 

 sorily glancing at one subject too intimately connected with the question 

 we have in hand to be entirely omitted : I mean, the nature and con- 

 dition of the Roman clients. 



We found that the Roman citizens consisted of Patricians on the 

 one hand, and plebeians on the other ; but there existed another divi- 

 sion, concurrently with the former, that into Patrons and Clients. 

 These two names have had very different meanings attached to them at 

 different times. In the later periods of the republic, Patroniis signified 

 the former master of a manumitted slave, the correlative term being 

 Libertus ; or it was used to designate a man who conducted a legal ca.se 

 for another, the correlative term in this instance being Cliens. It im- 

 plied however always the idea of superiority and protection on the 

 one side, and that of dependence on the other. Of the relation between 

 patron and client, such as it existed in the regal period of Roman history, 



