@Walter Hinteler,
Sorry but owning or renting is not the point in what the upper class did to the Roman small scale land owners who was also the foundation of the early Republic.
The Roman military make up, at the time, of these small land owners won great wealth for the Republic in a number of conflicts including great numbers of slaves.
The Wealthy got their hands on the bulk of this wealth and used it against the laws of the Republic to buy out these small land owners and then combine the lands into great estates and work those estates with their great supply of cheap slaves.
Things came apart as the legions could no longer be man by the small land owners as the law required as there was very few small land owners then existing to call on.
The Roman Republic then full their army with hired troops that was not stakeholders in the society and who tend to be loyal to their commanders and their paid masters not the senate.
Resulting in a number of civil wars and within a generation or two the end of the Republic.
