But when the rich began to carry it with a high hand over the poor, and to exclude them entirely if they did not pay exorbitant rents, a law was made that no man should be possessed of more than five hundred acres of land. This statute for a while restrained the avarice of the rich, and helped the poor, who by virtue of it remained on their lands at the old rents.
— PLUTARCH, Life of Tiberius Gracchus.
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