I] AIM AND SCOPE OF AGRICULTURE ii 



go to the trouble and expense of farming if he sees 

 that no return is possible, or that, while he may 

 get a return in crops, they will be destroyed by 

 disease. 

 9 But here we have men better qualified than I am 

 to deal with these matters; for I see coming C. Li- 

 cinius Stolo and Cn. Tremelius Scrofa. Itwas Stolo's 

 ancestors who proposed the law limiting the land 

 held by one person (for a Stolo originated the well- 

 known law which forbids a Roman citizen to hold 

 more than 500 iugerd)^ and Stolo himself through 

 admirable farming made good his right to the Cog- 

 nomen Stolo, for not a single '^sucker" could be 

 found on his estate since he went round his trees 

 digging up such offshoots from the root as sprouted 

 above the soil — and these were called ^^stolos." 

 C. Licinius ' of the same^^wi", when he was Tribune 



gentiles^ took charge of him and his property. Cf. the laws of 

 twelve tables (Cic. De Invent., ii, 148): Sifuriostis escit, ast ei 

 custos nee escit, adgnatum gentiliumque in eo peeuniaque eius 

 potestas esto. Persistent senseless extravagance was treated as 

 madness (cf. Ulpian, Reg., 12, 2). 



' Caitis Licinius Crassus was a Tribune of the Plebs in 

 145 B.C., and, according to Cicero (De Amicitia, xxv), he, 

 when addressing the people from the Rostra in support of a 

 popular measure, was the first to adopt the custom of speak- 

 ing with his face turned towards the Forum, not towards the 

 Comitium — by this implying the sovereignty of the people, 

 and denying that of the patricians. The Comitium was an 

 enclosure (unroofed) extending in a north-easterly direction 

 from the ancient Rostra. To face the Forum the orator would 

 have to turn right round, looking south. On its northern side 



