Lines 43-44. On the colony of Sipontum (?).
Thus we see that the _lex Thoria_ had two main objects in view: (1) The
guaranteeing to possessors full property in the land which they occupied.
(2) The freeing from _vectigal_ or _scriptura_ the property of every one.
In this way was the reaction of the aristocracy completed. It left nothing
of the Sempronian law. Appian[31] has fully comprehended all this, and, in
his enumeration of the three laws, connection between which he indicates,
we see clearly the entire revolutionary system, conducted, we must admit,
with a rare address and a perfidy which rendered the effect certain. The
aristocracy did not rest. As soon as they had gained the people by their
new bait of money and food, soothed them by their apparent generosity, and
familiarized them with the idea that the _possessions_ of the nobles were
not only legally acquired but inviolable, then they raised the mask, and
by a bold step swept away the _vectigal_,[32] thus leaving their property
free. The enactment of this law virtually closed the long struggle between
patrician and plebeian over the public lands of Rome, and left them as full
property in the hands of the rich nobility.
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