31.13
When
all the acts of expiation had been duly performed, and the sacrilege at Locri
had been investigated by Q. Minucius, and the money, recovered from the
sale of the goods of the guilty persons, had been replaced in the treasury, the
consuls were now anxious to start for their provinces, but a delay arose. A
number of persons had lent money to the State during the consulship of M.
Valerius and M. Claudius, and the repayment of the third instalment was due
this year. The consuls informed them that the money in the treasury would
hardly meet the cost of the new war, which would have to be carried on with
a large fleet and large armies and that there was no means of paying them for
the present. They appealed to the senate and pleaded that if the State chose
to use the money which was lent for the Punic War to defray the cost of the
Macedonian War also, and one war arose out of another, it would simply
mean that their money would be confiscated in return for the service they
had rendered as though it had really been an injury. The senate
acknowledged that they had a grievance. The creditors' demands were just,
but the State was unable to meet its liabilities and the senate decided upon a
course which was fair to both sides and of practical utility. Many of the
applicants had stated that there was land everywhere for sale and they
wanted to become purchasers; the senate accordingly made a decree that
they should have the option of taking any part of the public domain-land
within fifty miles of the City. The consuls would value the land and impose a
nominal tax of one as per jugerum as acknowledgment of its being public
land, and when the State could pay its debts any of them who wished to have
his money rather than the land could have it and restore the land to the
people. They gladly accepted these terms, and the land thus occupied was
called trientabulus because it was given in lieu of a third part of their loan.
