[22] Again, the law of debts was hardly favorable[23] to equality.
Niebuhr clearly[24] denied the existence of the plebs until Ancus
incorporated the Latins and bestowed upon them peculiar privileges thus
forming a new and third class distinct from both patricians and clients.
Had Niebuhr succeeded in establishing this view, the right to landed
property would appear to be wholly vested in the patricians, for a client,
from the very nature of his position, could hold nothing independent of
his master. But this theory has fallen to the ground and no writer of the
present day pretends to uphold it. The plebeians existed from the very
first and some of them held land in full private ownership very little
different from the quiritarian ownership of the patricians. Cicero, who in
his Republic[25] has occupied himself with the ancient constitution of Rome
and has spoken in detail of the division of the lands, always speaks of the
distribution among the citizens without regard to quality of patrician
or plebeian, _divisit viritim civibus_. He has nowhere written that
territorial riches were the exclusive appanage of the patriciate. It must
be confessed, however, that it is doubtful whether he intended to embrace
the plebeians in his _civibus_.
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