From the reign of Titus onwards, the camp was no longer appropriated exclusively to the troops. At the time when the Oppidum had been converted into a permanent camp, the whole of the plateau, its slopes, and part of the ground situated to the north, had been considered as _Ager Romanus_. It was what we should now call "crown land,"--_Ager Publicus_. The inhabitants, therefore, could not possess or build upon this land, or, if permitted to occupy a part, it was as usufructuaries, not as freeholders.
This Roman law, which dated from the time of the Republic, and which at first affected all provincial soil, was never rigorously applied. Its enforcement would have been difficult, and the populations of the provinces, as well as those of Italy, solicited and easily obtained the _jus Italicum_, which consisted in the full possession of the soil, with liberty to use, to sell, and to transmit it by way of inheritance. When the imperial government was definitively established, the emperors favoured the development of the principle of private property; because the great landholders were then the only persons who could be considered as forming an aristocratic class, privileged, it is true, but, on the other hand, bearing the burden of special functions--such, for instance, as that of urban magistrature, then very onerous. It must be observed that the civic rights accorded by Rome extended not only to a town, but to the whole of the territory pertaining to it.
As the Vale of Abonia possessed the _jus civitatis_, and the site of the camp remained unoccupied, the inhabitants petitioned that ground so well adapted to habitations should be restored to civil uses. It was then determined by the Emperor Vespasian that the _ager publicus_ of Abonia should be colonized. Colonization under the Roman empire meant the division solemnly made by the _agrimensores_, according to certain religious prescriptions, of a part of the _ager publicus_ into shares.
These shares were unequal, and, although apportioned by lot among the colonists--that is to say, among the native inhabitants and the foreigners who presented themselves as applicants for their possession, it always happened--by what means we are unable to say--that the allotments fell according to the rank or fortune of the individual. The ancient Oppidum was therefore colonized.