_Lex Flaminia._ Fifty four years after the enactment of the law of Curius
Dentatus, in the year 232, the tribune Caius Flaminius,[8] the man who
afterwards was consul and fell in the bloody battle of lake Trasimenus,
brought forward and carried a law for the distribution of the _Gallicus
Ager_[9] among the plebeians. This territory[10] had been taken from the
Galli Semnones fifty-one years before and was now occupied as pasture land
by some large Roman families. This territory lay north of Picenum and
extended as far as Ariminum[11](Rimini.) This was an excellent opportunity
for awarding lands to Roman veterans for military service, and thus to
establish a large number of small farms, rather than to leave the land in
the possession of the rich who resided in Rome and, consequently, formed no
frontier protection against the inroads of barbarians from the north. By
alloting the land, the Latin race and Latin tongue would help to Romanize
territory already conquered by Roman arms. The only thing opposed to this
was the possession of the land by the aristocracy. But they had no legal
claim to the land and could be dispossessed without any indemnification.
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