§31.13.1expiatis omnibus religionibus — nam etiam Locris sacrilegium pervestigatum ab Q. Minucio erat, pecuniaque ex bonis noxiorum in thensauros reposita — cum consules in provincias proficisci vellent, §31.13.2privati frequentes, quibus ex pecunia, quam M. Valerio M. Claudio consulibus mutuam dederant, tertia pensio debebatur eo anno, §31.13.3adierunt senatum, quia consules, cum ad novum bellum, quod magna classe magnisque exercitibus gerendum esset, vix aerarium sufficeret, negaverant esse, unde iis in praesentia solveretur.
When all religious scruples had been expiated—for even the sacrilege at Locri had been thoroughly investigated by Quintus Minucius, and the money restored to the treasury from the property of the guilty—and when the consuls wished to depart for their provinces, a large number of private citizens, to whom the third installment was due that year from the money they had lent during the consulship of Marcus Valerius and Marcus Claudius, approached the senate, because the consuls, since the treasury was scarcely sufficient for the new war which had to be waged with a large fleet and great armies, had denied that there was any source from which they could be paid for the present.
§31.13.4senatus querentes eos non sustinuit: si in Punicum bellum pecunia data in Macedonicum quoque bellum uti res publica vellet, aliis ex aliis orientibus bellis quid aliud quam publicatam pro beneficio tamquam noxia suam pecuniam fore?
The senate could not withstand their complaints: if the state, after the money had been given for the Punic War, wished to use it for the Macedonian War as well, what else would it be, with wars arising one after another, than that their money, lent as a service, would be confiscated as if for a crime?
§31.13.5cum et privati aecum postularent, nec tamen solvendo aere alieno res publica esset, §31.13.6quod medium inter aecum et utile erat decreverunt, ut, quoniam magna pars eorum agros volgo venales esse diceret et sibimet emptis opus esse, agri publici, qui intra quinquagesimum lapidem esset, copia iis fieret: §31.13.7consules agrum aestimaturos et in iugera asses vectigal testandi causa publicum agrum esse imposituros, §31.13.8ut, si quis, cum solvere posset populus, pecuniam habere quam agrum mallet, §31.13.9restitueret agrum populo.
Since the private citizens demanded what was fair, and yet the state was not solvent enough to pay the debt, they decreed a middle course between fairness and expediency: that, since a large part of them said that lands were commonly for sale and that they needed to buy them, they should be given access to such of the public land as lay within the fiftieth milestone; that the consuls should value the land and impose a tax of one as per iugerum, to serve as proof that it was public land, so that, if anyone, when the state was able to pay, preferred to have the money rather than the land, he might restore the land to the state.
laeti eam condicionem privati accepere; trientabulumque is ager, quia pro tertia parte pecuniae datus erat, appellatus.
The private citizens gladly accepted this condition; and that land was called trientabulum, because it had been given in place of a third part of the money.