Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/93

Rh Valuation of Property. — Hitherto land had been the basis of the organization of the centuriate and the democratic assemblies (pp. 22, 48-49, 57); but other property, for example merchandise and slaves, must have increased considerably in Rome by this time, and made the old standard appear inadequate and unjust. Appius and his colleague seem to have been the first to enroll and classify citizens according to the amount of all the property, personal as well as real, of each one. Thus they placed trade, commerce, and manufactures, to a certain extent, on a level with agriculture. They were perhaps the first who reduced everything to a valuation in money. They seem to have rated one acre at about $183 (jugerum = 5000 asses sextantarii).

Enrollment and Classification of Citizens. — While so far only freeholders of free birth had been enrolled in the districts and in the Servian classes, Appius enrolled, all the citizens. He seems, so far as possible, to have allowed each citizen to register in any district he wished, and then to have placed him in one of the Servian classes according to the value of all his property. By this reorganization Appius possibly obtained a better basis for taxation and raised the number of citizens liable to military service, and thereby increased the available military resources of the state. By the admission of freedmen he no doubt impaired the independence of the assemblies based on districts (concilium plebis and comitia tributa), and he probably intended to make them subservient to a patrician oligarchy. But he was far less able to influence the assembly of centuries, because its gradation of the suffrage gave the preponderance to the rich.

The Appian Aqueduct and the Appian Way. — Appius had begun two public works of great importance — an aqueduct, and also a highway from Rome to Capua. He seems to have spent the immense sums of money required without