# 7. How much Land the Romans gave to their Colonists

I find it difficult to discover the truth about how much land the Romans distributed when they started a colony; for it depended more or less, I think, on the places to which colonies were sent. It would seem, however, that in all cases and in all places no colonist got more than a small share. This was done, first that more men might be sent out as a garrison to defend some district; and secondly, because it was unreasonable that whereas at home people lived as poor men, they should want their colonists to have a superfluity. Titus Livy tells us how, when Veii was taken, they sent out a colony and to each colonist granted three jugera and seven unciae of land, which in our measure comes to…. For this they had a further reason. It was not, they held, having plenty of land but its good cultivation that would tell. But all colonies, of course, necessarily had also public land on which anyone’s cattle might graze and where wood might be gathered for fires; without which no colony can support itself.