certainly have led to some disturbance, of which we can find no evidence
in any part of the country, another circumstance renders such a con-
clusion unreasonable. This is that neither Odovacar’s soldiers, nor
Theodoric’s, were in reality sufficiently numerous to occupy a third
part of the land in Italy. Greek chronicles, it is true, speak of the
rptrrjfioptov rtov &ypG>v, Latin writers of the tertiae. But what are
we to understand by these expressions ? Among the few scholars who
have attempted to dispute the current theory, some, like de Roziere,
believe that the chronicler's words denote an act of confiscation for
which compensation was made to the owners by a tax levied at the rate
of one-third of the annual value. Others, like Lécrivain, consider that
they mean a surrender of unappropriated land, in return for which a
tribute was’ exacted equal to a third of the annual produce. At no
period, not even during the agrarian troubles in the far away days of
the Republic, had it ever been the custom to eject legal proprietors
from their estates. On the contrary, on every occasion when land had
been required for the purpose of making grants to the plebeians, to
veterans or praetorians, or even to barbarians, it had invariably been
taken from land owned by the community, that is to say from the land
around the temples, from unoccupied land, or from the property of the
Treasury. Whenever indeed a distribution of land took place, it was
made exclusively from the lands belonging to the Treasury, which, at
certain periods, multiplied exceedingly owing to escheated successions
or confiscations. In our own opinion, it was a third of these state lands,
this ager publicus, that was assigned to the barbarians during the reigns
of Odovacar and Theodoric. In addition to the fact that not one of the
texts actually contradicts this theory, it appears to be sufficiently proved
by the following words, addressed by Ennodius to Liberius, when the
latter was ordered to allot the land of Liguria to the Goths: “Have
you not enriched innumerable Goths with liberal grants, and yet the
Romans hardly seem to know what you have been doing." Even the
courtier-like Ennodius would not have expressed himself in this manner
in a private letter, or even in an official communication, if private
estates had been attacked for the benefit of the conquerors.
During the early years of the Roman Empire, the annual food supply of Italy had always been one of the government's chief anxieties; and the writings of Cassiodorus constantly shew us that Theodoric was not free from a similar care. His orders to his officials, however, on this subject, appear to have been attended with excellent results. During his reign, according to the Anonymus, sixty measures of wheat might be purchased for a solidus, and thirty amphorae of wine might be had for a like sum. Paul the Deacon has remarked the joy with which the Romans received Theodoric’s order for an annual distribution of twenty thousand measures of grain among the people. It was, moreover, with a view to making the yearly food supply more
