Rich landlords and poor neighbours 331 



of party cliques, in fact an autocrat 1 within the jurisdiction of the 

 town, was given to making raids on the poverty of his humble neigh- 

 bour. He slaughtered his flocks, drove off his oxen, and trampled 

 down his crops before they were ripe, till he had robbed him of all the 

 fruit of his thrift. His next desire was to expel him altogether from 

 his patch of soil : so he got up a baseless dispute over boundaries, and 

 claimed the whole of the land as his own. The poor man, though 

 diffident by nature, was bent upon keeping his hereditary ground if 

 only for his own burial. The claim upset him greatly, and he entreated 

 a number of his friends to attend at the settlement 2 of boundaries. 

 Among those present were the three brothers mentioned above, who 

 came to do their little best in the cause of their injured friend. But 

 the rich man, unabashed by the presence of a number of citizens, 

 treated all efforts at conciliation with open contempt, and swore that 

 he would order his slaves to pick the poor man up by the ears and 

 chuck him ever so far from his 'cottage in less than no time. The by- 

 standers were greatly incensed at this brutal utterance. One of the 

 three brothers dared to say ' It's no good your bullying and threatening 

 like this just because you are a man of influence; don't forget that 

 even poor 3 men have found in the laws guarding freemen's rights a 

 protector against the outrages of the rich/ Upon this the enraged 

 tyrant let loose his ferocious dogs 4 and set them on the company. A 

 horrible scene followed. One of the three youths was torn to pieces, 

 and the others also perished ; one of them slain by the rich man him- 

 self, the other, after avenging his brother, by his own hand. 



The mere aggression of the rich landlord on the poor is interesting 

 as adding another instance of the encroachments to the occurrence 

 of which many other writers testify. The most remarkable feature 

 of the story is the insolent disregard of the Law shewn by the rich 

 man from first to last. That the governor of the Province could pre- 

 vent or punish such outrages, if his attention were called to them, is 

 not to be doubted. But he could not be everywhere at once, and it is 

 not likely that many of the poorer class would be forward to report 

 such doings and appear as accusers of influential persons. The rich 

 probably sympathized with their own class, and a poor man shrank 

 from a criminal prosecution that would in any event expose him to 

 their vengeance afterwards. True, the poor were the majority. But it 

 was a very old principle of Roman policy to entrust the effective con- 

 trol of municipalities to the burgesses of property, men who had 

 something to lose and who, being a minority, would earn their local 



1 cuncta facile faciens in civitate. 2 Norden pp 161-3. 



3 cum alioquin pauperes etiam liberali legum praesidio de insolentia loctipletium consue- 

 vtrint vindicari. 



4 Fierce dogs seem to have been a marked feature of country life. See vin 17, IX 2. 



