BOOK I. III. 11-13 



though our victories and the annihilation of the 

 enemy had desolated vast stretches of country, it 

 was still a criminal matter for a senator to have 

 more than fifty " iugera in his possession. And 

 Gaius Licinius ^ was condemned under the terms of 

 his own law when, with an unrestrained passion for 

 o^\Tiership, he had exceeded the limit of landhold- 

 ings which he had set up by legislation proposed 

 when he was a tribune ; and this not only because 

 it was a mai*k of arrogance to occupy holdings of 

 such extent, but quite as much for the reason that 

 it seemed the more scandalous for a Roman citizen, 

 by extending his ownership in unheard-of fashion 

 beyond the sufficiency of his inheritance, to leave un- 

 tilled those lands which the enemy by their flight had 

 abandoned. Therefore, as in all matters, so too in the 12 

 acquiring of land, moderation shall be exercised. 

 For only so much is to be occupied as is needed, that 

 we may appear to have purchased what we may keep 

 under control, not to saddle ourselves -with a biu*den 

 and to deprive others of its use and enjoyment after 

 the manner of men of enormous wealth who, 

 possessing entire countries of which they carmot 

 even make the rounds, either leave them to be 

 trampled by cattle and wasted and ravaged by 

 wild beasts, or keep them occupied by citizens 

 enslaved for debt <^ and by chain-gangs. But every 

 man's limit will be determined by his own desire 

 plus his means ; for, as I have said before, the desire 13 

 for possession does not suffice if you lack the where- 

 withal for cultivation. 



quasi slave (nexiis) of his creditor. Cf. Varro, L.L. VII. 

 105, Liber qui snas operas in servitutem pro pecunia quadam 

 debebat, dum solveret, nexus vocatur, ut ab aere obaeratus. 



51 



