Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 31
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. Professor of Latin and Head of the Department of Classics in the University of Pittsburgh, Ed.

[p. 41] XIII. When all these scruples had been allayed —² for the sacrilege at Locri had been investigated by Quintus Minucius and the money replaced in the treasury out of the property of the guilty —and [2] the consuls were on the point of leaving for their provinces, many private citizens, to whom was due this year the third payment on [3] the loans made in the consulship of Marcus Valerius and Marcus Claudius,³ appealed to the senate because the consuls had declared that, since the treasury hardly sufficed for the new war, which was to be waged with a great fleet and large armies, there was no money at their command with which to make the payment. [4] The senate could not resist their complaints: If the state wished to use for the Macedonian war, the petitioners argued, the money loaned for the Punic war, since one conflict followed hard upon another, what else would be the result than the confiscation of their property in return for an act of generosity, as if it had been a crime? [5] Since the request of these citizens was reasonable, and since nevertheless the state could [6] not repay the loan, the senate took an action which was midway between justice and expediency, namely, that, since many of the creditors said that there was much land for sale, to purchase which cash was needed, the opportunity should be given them to receive public land lying within the fiftieth milestone; [7] the consuls were to appraise this land and to impose an annual rental of one as per iugerum⁴ by way of attesting that this was public land; [8] consequently, if anyone, when the state should be in funds, [p. 43]should prefer money to the land, he could restore the⁵ land to the people. [9] The creditors gladly accepted this offer, and the land was called “trientabulum” because it was allotted in discharge of one-third of the debts.