The Bee-Hive. — 1870-06-18 (London, England)

LAND. "In the following chapters of this book," (it has been admirably retuarked by the historian,) we ehall have to record, not only the slow steps by Which the Romans recovered dominion over their neighbours, but also the long-continued and patient struggle by which the PleheEns. raised themse:ves to a level with the Patricians. who had again become the dominant caste at Rome. To an Englishman this history ought to be especially dear; for more than any other it resembles the long-enduring constancy and noble self-control with which ilia Commons of his own country secured their r;ghts. It was by'a struggle of a century an() a half that the character of the Roman people was moulded into that form of strength and energy which threw back Hannibal to the coasts of Africa, and made them masters of the Mediterranean shore.  A beginning was, indeed, at length made in the executing of the Agrarian taw, and on a memorable occasion. On the conquest of Anfinal from the Volscians, a Roman, military colony was sent there in the year 285, A.t.0., and the land was divided among the colonists, who were taken from among the poorer citizens of Rome. Thus they were relieved of their privations, were placed in the independent po. sition of free peasant proprietors, and became the best of all military defences against the Volscian tribes. What the poor dispossessed inhabitants of Antium thought of the change is another matter. Probably a sturdy Roman statesman would have said that it was only fitting retribution on the Volscians for making war upon Rome. But the moral character of the acts of communities must be judged by the principles of morality then current among them, not by the higher standard of later and more privileged days. _ . . _ _ _  This colonization of Antium is doubly interesting to• us, then, as among the first (if not the first) authentic instances of that policy of colonization which became one of the main secrets of Rome's successful conquests,—and especially as the first practical result of the Agrarian Law. But the general execution of the Law was still delayed. A second Appius Claudius, following his father's example, attempted to coerce the people, and on their refusing to fight against the Volscians he put every tenth man* in his army to death. The people suffered patiently, but their Tribunes brought him to trial after his Consulship was over, and seeing that condemnation could not be escaped, "the proud Patrician avoided humiliation by suicide." Then came all the sufferings caused by debts and privations, and the incursions of their enemies; to these are long was added another destructive pestilence, which swept off a large proportion of the nobility as well as of the people of Rome. The Tribunes still demanded vain the execution of the Agrarian Law, and ;at length one of these defenders of the Pk; beians, by name C. Terentilius Harsa, saw that Hew° our word, to "decimate,* from " deaies," the Latin fcr "ten."  the root of the Mischief was the almost despotic powers of the Consuls, their being elected under the influence of the Patrieians, and their being chosen exclusively from the ranks of the nobility. Hence, abandoning for a time any attempt to get the public lands divided, he proposed that a Commission of t-m. mea (deem yin) "should be appointed to draw up laws for regulating the future relations of the Patricians and Plebeians."