peasant-proprietor

Updated: October 1, 2026

Doubtless the prohibition to sell revealed a weakness in the agricultural system of the times; but the regulation was probably framed, not in despair of the small holder securing a maintenance, but as a protection against the money-lender, that curse of the peasant-proprietor, who might now be less willing to approach the peasant, when the security which he obtained could under no circumstances lead to his acquiring eventual ownership.

A. H. J. (Abel Hendy Jones) Greenidge - A History of Rome During the Later Republic and Early Principate