Sicilian towns, the tenths of which were let in Sicily on the same terms as in King Hiero's time. These Sicilian tenths were often let to individuals, and sometimes even to the persons who had to pay them, which in fact was the same as a commutation of the tenths into an equivalent money payment. In Sicily the tenths of the free cities were not let. There were a few Sicilian states which had been conquered by the Romans, and the land had been restored subject to the tenths, which were let by the censors at Rome, just as the African tenths were. With this exception the condition of Sicily as to the payment of dues was much better than that of the other provinces.

The forty-eighth chapter is defective. Rudorff conjectures from the extant words that it may have referred to the establishment of public granaries or store-houses (horrea). The truth of the conjecture is doubtful; but this chapter certainly refers to the carrying of corn ('comportare,' the usual Roman word) by the African cultivators to certain places in the province, and probably for exportation to Rome, as Rudorff also suggests, for Rome derived from Africa at a later time a large part of her supply of corn.

This condition of the province Africa and its limits remained unchanged till the battle of Thapsus, B.C. 46. This valuable possession of Rome, with the limits already described, was a part of the present regency of Tunis, which still exports some grain, and a considerable quantity of oil. The aspect of this ill-governed country does not correspond to the imaginary picture which we might form when we read of its flourishing condition under the Roman government, and when we see the remains of the numerous public buildings both for ornament and use which were erected under the empire. But many parts of the regency contain good lands, which under a better government might be made as productive as they were when the Roman capitalists enriched themselves by feeding Italy with the bread grown in Africa.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE THORIA LEX; THE CORINTHIAN
TERRITORY; ACHAEA.

WHEN Corinth was taken and destroyed, Mummius ordered the walls of all the cities which had opposed the Romans in the Achaean war to be pulled down, and he deprived the people of these cities of their arms. When the ten com

missioners came from Rome to assist him in the settlement of affairs, they put down the democratical forms of government in the towns, and established in them magistrates taken from the wealthy class. Taxes (vectigalia) were imposed on Hellas, and those who possessed property were forbidden to hold any land beyond the limits of their own community. In Roman language, this was depriving the Hellenes of the commercium, or the liberty of acquiring property in land beyond the limits of their several communities; a policy which the Romans had practised long before in the case of some of the Latin towns, and more recently in the case of Macedonia. The meetings of the confederations were abolished, both those of the Achaeans, of the Phocians, of the Boeotians, and whatever other there might be. But not many years afterwards the Romans took pity on Hellas, and they allowed the people to meet again in their antient national councils, and to possess land in other communities than those in which they severally dwelt. They remitted also the pecuniary penalties which they had ordered the Boeotians to pay to the Heracleotae and the Euboeans, and the Achaeans to the Lacedaemonians. But a governor was sent even to my time,

says Pausanias (vii. 16), who is the authority for all that has been here stated about the conquest; and he adds, and the Romans name him governor not of Hellas (Greece), but of Achaea, because they conquered the Hellenes (Greeks) through the Achaeans, who were at that time at the head of the Hellenic nation.'

We learn from the Thoria Lex that the land of Corinth was declared the property of the Roman state (c. 50). It was Ager Publicus Populi Romani. The narrow territory of Corinth was not fertile. The best part lay between Corinth and Sicyon along the shore of the Corinthian gulf. The law provided that the Corinthian land, which had become Roman property, should be measured and bounds fixed to it; but with the exception of two portions. The part of the law which contained the first excepted portion is lost, but the omission is supplied by Rudorff from a passage of Strabo and Pausanias. Strabo says that the Sicyonians received the greater part of the territory of Corinth on the condition, as we collect from a passage of Pausanias, of providing for the cost of the Isthmian games, for these games were not neglected after the destruction of Corinth. When Corinth was re-settled by the Dictator Caesar, the superintendence of the games was restored to the Corinthians.

The second portion excepted in c. 50 was the land and buildings, which according to the law were to be sold. Thus part of the Corinthian territory was given to Sicyon, part was declared to be held as Ager Publicus, and the rest was to be sold. No provision was made for the Corinthians themselves, and it was not necessary. Some had fled from the city when it was taken, others were killed, and the women and children were sold for slaves. The soil on which Corinth stood was devoted to be a waste. The destruction of this flourishing city was as complete as that of Carthage. Rudorff asks if the land which was put up for sale was not also measured; and he gives the only answer that can be given. Certainly it was measured, for it could not be sold, unless it was measured. The land which was made public land and was not sold was only marked out by boundaries for the purpose of preventing encroachment on it; but it was used in

some way, for it brought in a revenue to the Roman state at the time when Cicero made his speech against the Agrarian law of Rullus, who included this Corinthian land in his comprehensive plan of sale. The land which was sold (ager quaestorius) would be divided by 'limites,' or straight lines, and measured out into allotments of fifty jugera, if the practice, which was usual in the sale of other public lands, was also followed here.

Rudorff concludes from the form of the fragments of the Thoria Lex that it must have contained much more than is now extant. When the fragments are put together, they form a piece which is so wide compared with the height, that the complete original may have contained twice as much as that which remains; for almost all other bronze tables, which contain Roman Leges, are oblong, and the height is much more than the width. He also observes that the Agrarian law subsequently proposed by Rullus referred to whole provinces. It is a great loss to Roman history that the Thoria Lex is so imperfectly preserved. It is not likely that it touched only the Corinthian territory in Greece. Other Greek towns suffered as well as Corinth in the war with the Romans. Thebes was destroyed, as Livy's Epitome states, which statement however we cannot accept literally, but it is probable that Thebes lost some of its territory. Chalcis in Euboea also was destroyed, according to the Epitome. Megara too had opposed the Romans, though the people prudently surrendered at last. The two-thirds of the Thoria, the amount which is assumed to be lost, could easily have contained regulations for all the lands in Greece which might have been declared Roman property, and also for the lands in the former kingdom of Pergamum, now the Roman province of Asia. It is true that M' Aquillius and his ten assistant commissioners made a settlement of Asia after the defeat of Aristonicus (B.C. 129); and C. Sempronius Gracchus in his tribunate carried a law for the letting of the vectigalia of Asia by the censors at Rome. But the Thoria Lex, in its regulation of the public land in Italy, went as far back as the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus, and it regulated the lands of Africa, though the affairs of this province had

been settled soon after the destruction of Carthage. It seems probable then that the Thoria Lex was designed to make a final settlement of all the public lands in the Roman provinces.

There remains a difficult question as to the political condition of Greece after the destruction of Corinth. Sigonius, in his treatise on the Roman provinces (I. c. ix.), says that after the victory of Mummius, Epirus and all the parts south of Thessaly were constituted as a province under the name of Achaea. He does not give any evidence except the passage of Pausanias, which has been referred to in this chapter, and the fact that Ser. Sulpicius, Cicero's friend, about a hundred years after the destruction of Corinth, was exercising jurisdiction in Attica and Boeotia. The authority of Pausanias is not conclusive. Perhaps he thought that Achaea was made a Roman province immediately after the victory of Mummius, and he knew that it was a province at the time when he was writing, which was about three hundred years after the dissolution of the Achaean confederacy. It is difficult to see exactly what Pausanias means when he says that the Romans took pity on Hellas and allowed the people to meet again in their antient national councils; for according to this statement the Romans did allow certain federal unions of the Greek towns to exist after the destruction of Corinth. If such meetings were allowed after the conquest, we must suppose that they could have no other purpose than the regulation of certain matters of internal administration.

The opinion of Sigonius has been lately disputed, and it has been maintained that after B.C. 146 all Greece was placed in a kind of provisional state, as Macedonia was immediately after B.C. 167, and that there is no proof of the existence of a province Achaea till the time of Augustus. The fact is, that there is no distinct evidence of a provincial government, such as that of Sicily for instance, being immediately established in Achaea, but there are many passages which make it almost impossible to affirm that Achaea was not immediately made a province. When Mummius and his ten commissioners settled the affairs of Greece, they would settle them completely, if they did what the Romans usually did