And sometimes even land
itself, in large tracts, which had been confiscated by the state, or
otherwise taken from the original possessors, was divided among the
people. The laws enacted from time to time for this purpose were called
Agrarian laws; and the phrase afterward passed into a sort of proverb,
inasmuch as plans proposed in modern times for conciliating the favor of
the populace by sharing among them property belonging to the state or to
the rich, are designated by the name of _Agrarianism_.
[Sidenote: Government of Rome.]
[Sidenote: Its foreign policy.]
Thus Rome was a city supported, in a great measure, by the fruits of its
conquests, that is, in a certain sense, by plunder. It was a vast
community most efficiently and admirably organized for this purpose; and
yet it would not be perfectly just to designate the people simply as a
band of robbers. They rendered, in some sense, an equivalent for what
they took, in establishing and enforcing a certain organization of
society throughout the world, and in preserving a sort of public order
and peace. They built cities, they constructed aqueducts and roads; they
formed harbors, and protected them by piers and by castles; they
protected commerce, and cultivated the arts, and encouraged literature,
and enforced a general quiet and peace among mankind, allowing of no
violence or war except what they themselves created.
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