The government might well be deeply concerned. The veterans
who had recently settled many of Italy's best tracts could not have
been skilled farmers. The very fact that the lands were given them for
political services could only have suggested to the shrewd among them
that the old Roman respect for property rights had been infringed,
and that it was wise to sell as soon as possible and depart with some
tangible gain before another revolution resulted in a new redistribution.
Such suspicions could hardly beget the patience essential for the
development of agriculture. And yet this was the very time when farming
must be encouraged. Large parts of the arable land had been abandoned to
grazing during the preceding century because of the importation of the
provincial stipendiary grain, and Italy had lost the custom of raising
the amount of food that her population required. As a result, the younger
Pompey's control of Sicily and the trade routes had now brought on a
series of famines and consequent bread-riots. Year after year Octavian
failed in his attempts to lure away or to defeat this obnoxious rebel.
At best he could buy him off for a while, though he never knew at what
season of scarcity the purchase price might become prohibitive.
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