Sec. 5.--Lex Cassia.
Every year added to the difference between the patrician and plebeian, the
rich and the poor; a difference which had now grown so great as to threaten
seriously the very existence of the state. The most sagacious of all the
plans which had been proposed to stop this evil, was that set forth by
Spurius Cassius, a noble patrician now acting as consul for the third[l]
time. In the year 268, he submitted to the burgesses[2] a proposal to have
the public land surveyed, that portion belonging to the populus set aside
and the remainder divided among the plebeians or leased for the benefit[3]
of the public treasury.
He thus attempted to wrest from the senate the control of the public land
and, with the aid of the Latini and the plebeians, to put an end to the
system of occupation.[4] The lands which he proposed to divide were solely
those which the state had acquired through conquest since the general
assignment by king Servius, and which it still retained.[5] This was the
first measure by which it was proposed to disturb the possessors in their
peaceful occupation of the state lands, and, according to Livy, such a
measure had never been proposed from then to the time in which he was
writing, under Augustus, without exciting the greatest disturbance.[6]
Cassius might well suppose that his personal distinction and the equity
and wisdom of the measure would carry it through, even amidst the storm of
opposition to which it was subjected. Like many other reformers equally
well meaning, he was mistaken.
The citizens who occupied this land had grown rich by reason of its
possessions. Some of them received it as an inheritance, and doubtless
looked upon it as their property as much as the _Ager Romanus_. These to a
man opposed the bill. The patricians arose en masse. The rich plebeians,
the aristocracy of wealth, took part with them. Even the commons were
dissatisfied because Spurius Cassius proposed in accordance with federal
rights and equity to bestow a portion of the land upon the Latini and
Hernici, their confederates and allies.[7] The bill proposed by Cassius,
together with such provisions as were necessary, became a law, according to
Niebuhr,[8] because the tribunes had no power to bring forward a law of any
kind before the plebeian tribes obtained a voice in the legislature by the
enactment of the Publilian law in 472 B.C.; so that when they afterwards
made use of the agrarian law to excite the public passions it must have
been one previously enacted but dishonestly set aside and, in Dionysius'
account, this is the form which the commotion occasioned by it takes.[9]
Though this is doubtless true, yet the law, by reason of the combined
opposition, became a dead letter and the people who would have been most
benefited by its enforcement joined with Cassius' enemies at the expiration
of his term of office to condemn him to death. In this way does ignorance
commonly reward its benefactors. This agitation aroused by Cassius, stirred
the Roman Commonwealth, now more than twenty years old, to its very
foundations, but it had no immediate effect upon the _ager publicus_. The
rich patrician together with the few plebeians who had wealth enough to
farm this land, still held undisputed possession. The poor plebeian still
continued to shed his blood on the battle field to add to Roman territory,
but no foot of it did he obtain. Wealth centralized. Pauperism increased.
[Footnote 1: Dionysius, VIII, 68; "[Greek: Oi de para touton taen upateian
paralabontaes poplios Ouerginios kai Sporios Kassios, to triton tote
apodeichtheis upotos, k. t. l.]"]
[Footnote 2: Dionysius, VIII, 69; Livy, II, 41, _seq_.]
[Footnote 3: Dionysius, VIII, 81.]
[Footnote 4: Dionysius, VIII, 69; Mommsen, I, 363.]
[Footnote 5: Niebuhr, II, 166.]
[Footnote 6: Livy, II, 41; "Tum primum lex agraria promulgata est nunquam
deinde usque ad hanc memoriam sine maximus motibus rerum agitata."]
[Footnote 7: Livy, II, 41; Dionysius, VIII, 69.]
[Footnote 8: Niebuhr, II.]
[Footnote 9: Dionysius, VIII, 81: [Greek: "Ekklaesiai te sunegeis hypo ton
tote daemarchon eginonto kai apaitaeseis taes hyposcheseos." See also VIII,
87, line 25 _et seq._].]
SEC. 6.--AGRARIAN MOVEMENTS BETWEEN 486 AND 367.
Modern historians who have written upon the Roman Republic have, so far as
I know, passed immediately from the consideration of the _Lex Cassia_ to
the law of Licinius Stolo. Meanwhile more than a century had passed away.
Cassius died in 485, Licinius Stolo proposed his law in 376. During this
century which had beheld the organization of the republic and the growth,
by tardy processes, of the great plebeian body many agrarian laws were
proposed and numerous divisions of the public land took place. Both
Dionysius and Livy mention them. The poor success of the proposition of
Cassius and the evil consequences to himself in no way checked the zeal
of the tribunes. Propositions of agrarian laws followed one another with
wonderful rapidity. Livy enumerates these propositions, but almost wholly
without detail and without comments upon their tendencies or points of
difference from one another or from the law of Cassius. As this law failed
of its object by being disregarded, we may safely conclude that the most of
these propositions were but a reproduction of the law of Cassius.
In 484, and again in 483, the tribune proposed agrarian laws but what their
nature was, Livy, who records them, does not tell us. From some vague
assertions which he makes we may conclude that the point of the law was
well known, and was but a repetition of that of Cassius.[1] The consul
Caeso Fabius, in 484, and his brother Marcus in the following year, secured
the opposition of the senate and succeeded in defeating their laws.
Livy (II, 42,) mentions very briefly a new proposition brought forward
by Spurius Licinius in 482. Here we are able to complete his account by
reference to Dionysius,[2] who says that, in 483, a tribune named Caius
Maenius had proposed an agrarian law and declared that he would oppose
every levy of troops until the senate should execute the law ordaining the
creation of decemvirs to determine the boundaries of the domain land and,
in fine, forbid the enrolment of citizens. The senate was able through the
consuls, Marcus Fabius and Valerius, the ancient colleague of Cassius, to
invent a means of avoiding this difficulty. The authority of the tribunes
by the old Roman law,[3] did not reach without the walls of the city, while
that of the consuls was everywhere equal and only bounded by the limits of
the Roman world. They moved their curule chairs and other insignia of their
authority without the city walls and proceeded with the enrolments. All who
refused to enroll were treated as enemies[4] of the republic. Those who
were proprietors had their property confiscated, their trees cut down, and
their houses burned. Those who were merely farmers saw themselves bereft
of their farm-implements, their oxen and all things necessary for the
cultivation of the soil. The resistance of the tribunes was powerless
against this systematic oppression on the part of the patricians; the
agrarian[5] law failed and the enrolment progressed.
There is some difficulty in determining the facts of the law proposed by
Spurius Licinius[6] of which Livy speaks. Dionysius calls this tribune, not
Licinius but [Greek: Spurios Sikilios]. The Latin translation of Dionysius
has the name Icilius and this has been the name adopted by Sigonius and
other historians. Livy tells us that the Icilian family was at all times
hostile to the patricians and mentions many tribunes by this name who were
staunch defenders of the commons. In accepting this correction, therefore,
it is not necessary to confound this Icilius with the one who proposed the
partition of the Aventine among the plebeians. Icilius, according to both
Livy and Dionysius,[7] made the same demand as the previous tribunes,
_i.e.,_ that the decemvirs should be nominated for the survey and
distribution of the domain lands, according to previous enactment. He
further declared that he would oppose every decree of the senate either for
war or the administration of the interior until the adoption and execution
of his measures. Again the senate avoided the difficulty and escaped, by
a trick, the execution of the law. Appius Claudius, according to
Dionysius,[8] advised the senate to search within the tribunate for a
remedy against itself, and to bribe a number of the colleagues of Icilius
to oppose his measure. This political perfidy was adopted by the senate
with the desired effect. Icilius persisted in his proposition and declared
he would rather see the Etruscans masters of Rome than to suffer for
a longer time the usurpation of the domain lands on the part of the
possessors.[9]
This somewhat circumstantial account has revealed to us that at this time
it took a majority of the tribunes to veto an act of their colleague. At
the time of the Gracchi the veto of a single tribune was sufficient to
hinder the passage of a law, and Tiberius was for a long time thus checked
by his colleague, Octavius. Then the tribunician college consisted of ten
members, and it would be no very difficult thing to detach one of the
number either by corruption or jealousy. But it is evident that, at the
time we are considering, it took a majority of the tribunes to veto an
act of a colleague; moreover, the college consisted of five members. This
latter fact is seen in the statement of Livy,[10] when he mentions
the opposition which four of the tribunes offered to their colleague,
Pontificius, in 480. In this same case he attributes to Appius Claudius
the conduct which Dionysius attributed to him in the previous year. But he
causes Appius to state, in his speech favoring the corruption of certain
tribunes, "that the veto of one tribune would be sufficient to defeat all
the others."[11] This is contrary to the statement of Dionysius[12]
and would seem improbable, for, if the opposition of one tribune was
sufficient, the patricians would not have deemed it necessary to purchase
four. That would be contrary to political methods.
Of the two propositions of the tribunes, Icilius, in 482, and Pontificius,
in 480, the results were the same. The opposition of their colleagues
defeated them. But this persistent opposition rather than crushing seemed
to stir up renewed attacks. We have seen the tribunes, Menius, Icilius, and
Pontificius, successively fail. The next movement was led by a member of
the aristocracy, Fabius Caeso,[13] consul for the third time in 477. He
undertook to remove from the hands of the tribunes the terrible arm of
agrarian agitation which they wielded constantly against the patricians, by
causing the patricians themselves to distribute the domain lands equally
among the plebeians, saying: "that those[14] persons ought to have the
lands by whose blood and sweat they had been gained." His proposition was
rejected with scorn by the patricians, and this attempt at reconciliation
failed as all the attempts of the tribunes had. The war with Vaii which,
according to Livy, now took place hindered for a while any agrarian
movements; but, in 474, the tribunes Gaius Considius and Titus Genucius
made a fruitless attempt at distribution, and, in 472, Dionysius speaks of
a bill brought forward by Cn. Genucius which is probably the same bill.
In 468, the two consuls, Valerius and Aemilius, faithfully supported the
tribunes in their demand[15] for an agrarian law. The latter seems to have
supported the tribunes because he was angry that the senate had refused
to his father the honor of a triumph; Valerius, because he wished to
conciliate the people for having taken part in the condemnation of Cassius.
Dionysius, according to his custom, takes advantage of the occasion to
write several long speeches here, and one of them is valuable to us. He
causes the father of Aemilius to set forth in a formal speech the true
character of the agrarian laws and the right of the state to again assume
the lands which had been taken possession of. He further says: "that it
is a wise policy[16] to proceed to the division of the lands in order to
diminish the constantly increasing number of the poor, to insure a far
greater number of citizens for the defense of the country, to encourage
marriages, and, in consequence, to increase the number of children and
defenders of the republic." We see in this speech the real purpose, the
germ, of all the ideas which Licinius Stolo, the Gracchi, and even Cæsar,
strove to carry out. But the Roman aristocracy was too blind to comprehend
these words of wisdom. All these propositions were either defeated or
eluded.
_Lex Icilia._ In the year 454,[17] Lucius Icilius, one of the tribunes for
that year, brought forward a bill that the Aventine hill should be conveyed
to the plebeians as their personal and especial property.[18] This hill had
been the earliest home of the plebeians, yet they had been surrounded by
the lots and fields of the patricians. That part of the hill which was
still in their possession was now demanded for the plebeians. It was a
small thing for the higher order to yield this much, as the Aventine stood
beyond the Pomoerium,[19] the hallowed boundary of the city, and, at best,
could not have had an area of more than one-fourth of a square mile, and
this chiefly woodland. The consuls, accordingly, made no hesitation about
presenting the bill to the senate before whom Icilius was admitted to speak
in its behalf. The bill was accepted by the senate and afterwards confirmed
by the Centuries.[20] The law provided,--"that all the ground which has
been justly acquired by any persons shall continue in the possession of the
owners, but that such part of it as may have been usurped by force or fraud
by any persons and built upon, shall be given to the people; those persons
being repaid the expenses of such buildings by the estimation of umpires
to be appointed for that purpose, and that all the rest of the ground
belonging to the public, be divided among the people, they paying no
consideration for the same."[21] When this was done the plebeians took
possession of the hill with solemn ceremonies. This hill did not furnish
homes for all the plebeians, as some have held; nor, indeed, did they wish
to leave their present settlements in town or country to remove to the
Aventine. Plebeians were already established in almost all parts of the
city and held, as vassals of the patricians, considerable portions of Roman
territory. This little hill could never have furnished[22] homes of any
sort to the whole plebeian population. What it did do was to furnish to
the plebeians a trysting place in time of strife with their patrician
neighbors, where they could meet, apart and secure from interruption, to
devise means for resisting the encroachments of the patricians and to
further establish their rights as Roman citizens. Thus a step toward their
complete emancipation was taken. For a moment the people were soothed
and satisfied by their success, but soon they began to clamor for more
complete, more radical, more general laws. An attempt seems to have been
made in 453 to extend the application of the _lex Icilia_ to the _ager
publicus,_[23] in general, but nothing came of it. In 440, the tribune,
Petilius, proposed an agrarian law. What its conditions were Livy has not
informed us, but has contented himself with saying that "Petilius made a
useless attempt to bring before the senate a law for the division of the
domain lands."[24] The consuls strenuously opposed him and his effort came
to naught.
In our review of the agrarian agitation we must mention the forceless and
insignificant attempt made by the son of Spurius Melius, in 434. Again, in
422, we find that other attempts were made which availed nothing. Yet the
tribunes who attempted thus to gain the good will of the people set forth
clearly the object which they had in view in bringing forward an agrarian
bill. Says Livy; "They held out the hope to the people of a division of the
public land, the establishment of colonies, the levying of a _vectigal_
upon the possessors, which _vectigal_ was to be used[25] in paying the
soldiers."
In the year 419, and again in 418, unavailing attempts were made for the
division of lands among the plebeians. Spurius Maecilius and Spurius
Metilius, the tribunes[26]for the year 412, proposed to give to the people,
in equal lots, the conquered lands. The patricians ridiculed this law,
stating that Rome itself was founded upon conquered soil and did not
possess a single acre of land that had not been taken by force of arms,
and that the people held nothing save that which had been assigned by the
republic. The object, then, of the tribunes was to distribute the fortunes
of the entire state. Such vapid foolishness as this failed not of the
effect which the patricians aimed at. Appius Claudius counselled the
adoption of the excellent means invented by his grandfather. Six tribunes
were bought over by the caresses, flatteries, and money of the patricians
and opposed their vetoes to their colleagues who were thus compelled to
retire.[27]
In the following year, 411, Lucius Sextius, in no way discouraged by the
ill success of his predecessors, proposed the establishment of a colony
at Bolae, a town in the country of the Volscians, which had been recently
conquered. The patricians[28] opposed this by the same method which they
had adopted in the preceding case, the veto by tribunes. Livy criticises
the impolitic opposition of the patricians in these words: "This was a most
seasonable time, after the punishment of the mutiny, that the division of
the territory of Bolae should be presented as a soother to their minds; by
which proceeding they would have diminished their eagerness for an agrarian
law, which tended to expel the patricians from the public land unjustly
possessed by them. Then this very indignity exasperated their minds, that
the nobility persisted not only in retaining the public lands, which they
got possession of by force, but would not even grant to the commons the
unoccupied land lately taken from the enemy, and which would, like the
rest,[29] soon become the prey of the few."
In 409, Icilius, without doubt a member of that plebeian family which had
furnished so many stout defenders of the liberties of the people, was
elected tribune of the people and brought forward an agrarian bill, but
a plague broke out and hindered any further action. In 407, the tribune,
Menius, introduced an agrarian bill and declared that he would oppose the
levies until the persons who unjustly held the public domains consented to
a division. A war broke out and agrarian legislation was drowned amid the
din of arms. Some years now elapsed without the mention of any agrarian
laws. The siege of Veii commenced in 406 and lasted for six years, during
which time military law was established, giving occupation and some sort
of satisfaction to the plebeians. In 397, an agrarian movement was set on
foot, but the plebeians were partially satisfied by being allowed to elect
one of their number as _tribunus consularis_ for the following year, thus
obtaining a little honor but no land. After the conquest of Veii, there was
a movement on the part of the plebeians to remove from Rome and settle upon
the confiscated territory of the Veians; this was only staid by concessions
on the part of the patricians. A decree of the senate was passed,--"that
seven jugera, a man, of Vientian territory, should be distributed to the
commons and not only to the fathers of families, but also that all persons
in their house in the state of freedom should be considered, and that they
might be willing to rear up children[30] with that prospect." In 384, six
years after the conquest of Rome by the Gauls, the tribunes of the year
proposed a law for the division of the Pomptine territory (_Pomptinus
Ager_) among the plebeians. The time was not a favorable one for the
agitation of the people, as they were busy with the reconstruction of their
houses laid waste by the Gauls, and the movement came to nothing. The
tribune, Lucius Licinius, in 383, revived this movement but it was not
successfully carried till the year 379, when the senate, well disposed
towards the commons by reason of the conquest of the Volscians, decreed the
nomination of five commissioners to divide the Pomptine territory[31] among
the plebs. This was a new victory for the people and must have inspired
them with the hope of one day obtaining in full their rights in the public
domains.
We have now passed in review the agrarian laws proposed and, in some cases,
enacted between the years 485 and 376, _i.e._ between the _lex Cassia_ and
the _lex Licinia_, which the greater part of the historians have neglected.
We have now come to the propositions of that illustrious plebeian whose
laws, whose character, and whose object have been so diversely appreciated
by all those persons who have studied in any way the constitutional history
of Rome. We wish to enter into a detailed examination of the _lex Licinia_,
but before so doing have deemed it expedient to thus pass in review the
agrarian agitations. The result of this work has, we trust, been a better
understanding of the real tendency, the true purpose, of the law which is
now to absorb our attention. It was no innovation, as some writers of the
day assert, but in reality confined itself to the well beaten track of its
predecessors, striving only to make their attainments more general, more
substantial and more complete.
[Footnote 1: "Solicitati, eo anno, sunt dulcedine agrariae legis animi
plebis,. . . vana lex vanique legis auctores." Livy, II, 42.]
[Footnote 2: Dionysius, VIII, 606, 607.]
[Footnote 3: Livy, _loc. cit._: Dionysius, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 4: Dionys., VIII, 554.]
[Footnote 5: Dionys., VIII, 555.]
[Footnote 6: Val. Max., Fg. of Bk. X: "Spurii, patre incerto geniti."]
[Footnote 7: Livy, _loc. cit._; Dionys., _loc. cit.]
[Footnote 8: Dionys., IX, 558; Livy, II, 43.]
[Footnote 9: Dionys., IX, 559-560: "[Greek: tous kategontos taen choran
taen demosian." . . . "Kai Sikilios oudenos eti kurios aen.]".]
[Footnote 10: Livy, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 11: Livy, II, 44: "Et unum vel adversus omnes satis esse ...
quatuorque tribunorum adversus unum."]
[Footnote 12: Dionys., IX, 562.]
[Footnote 13: Livy, _loc. cit._; Dionys., _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 14: Livy, II, 48: "Captivum agrum plebi, quam maxime aequaliter
darent. Verum esse habere eos quorum sanguine ac sudore partus sit.
Aspernati Patres sunt."]
[Footnote 15: Livy, II, 61, 63, 64.]
[Footnote 16: Dionys., IX, 606, 607; Livy, III, 1. The authorities are
somewhat conflicting at this point, and I have followed the account of
Dionysius.]
[Footnote 17: Schwegler, _Römische Geschichte, _II, 484; Dionys., X, 31, p.
657, 43.]
[Footnote 18: Dionys., X, 31, l. 13; Ihne, _Hist. of Rome_, I, 191,
note; Lange, _Röm. Alter._, I, 619. Also see art. in Smith's _Dict. of
Antiquities_.]
[Footnote 19: _I.e._ outside of the _'quadrata'_' but _[Greek:
emperiechomenos tae poleis]_, Dionys., X, 31, l. 18: "pontificale
pomoerium, qui auspicato olim quidem omnem urbem ambiebat praeter
Aventinum." Paul, ex Fest., p. 248, Müll.]
[Footnote 20: Dionys., X, 32.]
[Footnote 21: Dionys., X, 32.]
[Footnote 22: Momm., I, 355.]
[Footnote 23: Dionys., X, 34.]
[Footnote 24: Livy, IV, 12: Neque ut de agris dividendis plebi referrent
consules ad senatum pervincere potuit.... Ludibrioque erant minae tribuni.]
[Footnote 25: "Agri publici dividendi, coloniaramque deducendarum
ostentatae spes, et vectigali possessoribus imposito, in stipendium militum
erogandi aeris." Livy, IV, 36.]
[Footnote 26: Livy, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 27: Livy, IV, 48.]
[Footnote 28: Livy, IV, 49.]
[Footnote 29: Livy, IV, 51.]
[Footnote 30: Livy, VI, 5.]
[Footnote 31: Quinque viros Pomptino agro dividendo. Livy, VI, 21.]
(a) _Extension of Territory by Conquest up to the Year 367 B.C._
1. Coreoli, captured in 442.
2. Bolae, captured in 414.
3. Labicum, captured in 418.
4. Fidenae, captured in 426 and all the territory confiscated.
5. Veii, captured in 396. This was the chief town of the
Etruscans, equal to Rome in size, with a large tributary
country; territory confiscated.
Approximate amount of land added to the Roman domain,
150 square miles.
(b) _Colonies Founded between 454 and 367._
CIVIC COLONIES.
-----------+---------+------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------
| | | NO. OF | NO. OF | TOTAL NO.|
COLONIES. | PLACE | DATE.| COLONISTS. | JUG. TO | OF JUG. | ACRES.
| | | | EACH. | |
-----------+---------+------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------
| | | | | |
Labici. | Latium. | 418 | 1500 | 2 | 3000 | 1875
| | | | | |
-----------+---------+------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------
LATIN COLONIES.
-----------+---------+------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------
Ardea. | Latium. | 442 | 300 | 2 | 600 | 375
Satricum. | " | 385 | 300 | 2 | 600 | 375
Sutrium. | Etruria.| 383 | 300 | 2 | 600 | 375
Nepete. | " | 383 | 300 | 4 | 1200 | 750
Setia. | Latium. | 382 | 300 | 4 | 1200 | 750
-----------+---------+------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------
| Total | 7200 | 4500
-----------------------------------------+---------+-----------+-----------
SEC. 7.--LEX LICINIA.
Party lines were, at the time of the enactment of the Licinian Law,
strongly marked in Rome. One of the tribunes chosen after the return of the
plebeians from Mons Sacer was a Licinius. The first military tribune with
consular power elected from the plebeians was another Licinius Calvus. The
third great man of this distinguished family was Caius Licinius Calvus
Stolo, who, in the prime of life and popularity, was chosen among the
tribunes of the plebs for the seventh year following the death of Manlius
the Patrician. Another plebeian, Lucius Sextius by name, was chosen tribune
at the same time. If not already, he soon became the tried friend of
Licinius. Sextius was the younger but not the less earnest of the two. Both
belonged to that portion of the plebeians supposed to have been latterly
connected with the liberal patricians. The more influential and by far the
more reputable members of the lower estate were numbered in this party.
Opposed to it were two other parties of plebeians. One consisted of the few
who, rising to wealth or rank, cast off the bonds uniting them to the lower
estate. They preferred to be upstarts among patricians rather than leaders
among plebeians. As a matter of course, they became the parasites of the
illiberal patricians. To the same body was attached another plebeian party.
This was formed of the inferior classes belonging to the lower estate.
These inferior plebeians were generally disregarded by the higher classes
of their own estate as well as by the patricians of both the liberal and
illiberal parties. They were the later comers, or the poor and degraded
among all. As such they had no other resource but to depend on the
largesses or the commissions of the most lordly of the patricians. This
division of the plebeians is a point to be distinctly marked. While there
were but two parties, that is the liberal and the illiberal among the
patricians, there were no less than three among the plebeians. Only one of
the three could be called a plebeian party. That was the party containing
the nerve and sinew of the order, which united only with the liberal
patricians, and with them only on comparatively independent terms. The
other two parties were nothing but servile retainers of the illiberal
patricians.
It was to the real plebeian party that Licinius belonged, as also did his
colleague Sextius,[1] by birth. A tradition of no value represented the
patrician and the plebeian as being combined to support the same cause
in consequence of a whim of the wife and daughter through whom they were
connected. Some revolutions, it is true, are the effect of an instant's
passion or an hour's weakness. Nor can they then make use of subsequent
achievements to conceal the caprices or the excitements in which they
originated. But a change, attempted by Licinius with the help of his
father-in-law, his colleague, and a few friends reached back one hundred
years and more (B.C. 486) to the law of the martyred Cassius, and forward
to the end of the Commonwealth. It opened new honors as well as fresh
resources to the plebeians.
Probably the tribune was raised to his office because he had shown the
determination to use its powers for the good of his order and of his
country. Licinius and Sextius together brought forward the three bills
bearing the name of Licinius as their author. One, says the historian, ran
concerning debts. It provided that, the interest already[2] paid being
deducted from the principal, the remainder should be discharged in equal
installments within three years. The statutes against excessive rates of
interest, as well as those against arbitrary measures of exacting the
principal of a debt, had utterly failed. It was plain, therefore, to any
one who thought upon the matter,--in which effort of thought the power of
all reformers begins,--that the step to prevent the sacrifice of the debtor
to the creditor was still to be taken. Many of the creditors themselves
would have acknowledged that this was desirable. The next bill of the three
related to the public lands. It prohibited any one from occupying more than
five hundred jugera, about 300 acres; at the same time it reclaimed all
above that limit from the present occupiers, with the object of making
suitable apportionments among the people[3] at large. Two further clauses
followed, one ordering that a certain number of freemen should be employed
on every estate; another forbidding any single citizen[4] to send out more
than a hundred of the larger, or five hundred of the smaller cattle to
graze upon the public pastures. These latter details are important, not
so much in relation to the bill itself as to the simultaneous increase of
wealth and slavery which they plainly signify. As the first bill undertook
to prohibit the bondage springing from too much poverty, so the second
aimed at preventing the oppression springing from too great opulence. A
third bill declared the office of military tribune with consular power
to be at an end. In its place the consulate was restored with full[5]
provision that one of the two consuls should be taken from the plebeians.
The argument produced in favor of this bill appears to have been the urgent
want of the plebeians to possess a greater share in the government than was
vested in their tribunes, aediles, and quaestors. Otherwise, said Licinius
and his colleague, there will be no security that our debts will be settled
or that our lands will be obtained.[6] It would be difficult to frame three
bills, even in our time, reaching to a further, or fulfilling a larger
reform. "Everything was pointed against the power of the patricians[7]
in order to provide for the comfort of the plebeians." This to a certain
degree was true. It was chiefly from the patrician that the bill concerning
debts detracted the usurious gains which had been counted upon. It was
chiefly from him that the lands indicated in the second bill were to be
withdrawn. It was altogether from him that the honors of the consulship
were to be derogated. On the other hand the plebeians, save the few
proprietors and creditors among them, gained by every measure that had been
proposed. The poor man saw himself snatched from bondage and endowed with
an estate. He who was above the reach of debt saw himself in the highest
office of the state. Plebeians with reason exulted. Licinius evidently
designed reuniting the divided members of the plebeian body. Not one of
them, whether rich or poor, but seems called back by these bills to stand
with his own order from that time on. If this supposition was true, then
Licinius was the greatest leader whom the plebeians ever had up to the time
of Cæsar. But[8] from the first he was disappointed. The plebeians who
most wanted relief cared so little for having the consulship opened to the
richer men of their estate that they would readily have dropped the bill
concerning it, lest a demand should endanger their own desires. In the same
temper the more eminent men of the order, themselves among the creditors of
the poor and the tenants of the domain, would have quashed the proceedings
of the tribunes respecting the discharge of debt and the distribution of
land, so that they carried the third bill only, which would make them
consuls without disturbing their possessions. While the plebeians continued
severed from one another, the patricians drew together in resistance to the
bills. Licinius stood forth demanding, at once, all that it had cost his
predecessors their utmost energy to demand, singly and at long intervals,
from the patricians. Nothing was to be done but to unite in overwhelming
him and his supporters. "Great things were those that he claimed and not to
be secured without the greatest contention."[9] The very comprehensiveness
of his measures proved the safeguard of Licinius. Had he preferred but one
of these demands, he would have been unhesitatingly opposed by the
great majority of the patricians. On the other hand he would have had
comparatively doubtful support from the plebs. If the interests of the
poorer plebeians alone had been consulted, they would not have been much
more active or able in backing their tribunes, while the richer men would
have gone over in a body to the other side with the public tenants and the
private creditors among the patricians. Or, supposing the case reversed and
the bill relating to the consulship brought forward alone, the debtors and
the homeless citizens would have given the bill too little help with hands
or hearts to secure its passage as a law. The great encouragement therefore
to Licinius and Sextius must have been their conviction that they had
devised their reform on a sufficiently expanded scale. As soon as the bills
were brought forward every one of their eight colleagues vetoed their
reading. Nothing could be done by the two tribunes except to be resolute
and watch for an opportunity for retaliation. At the election of the
military tribunes during that year, Licinius and Sextius interposed[10]
their vetoes and prevented a vote being taken. No magistrates could remain
in office after their terms expired, whether there were any successors
elected or not to come after them. The commonwealth remained without any
military tribunes or consuls at its head, although the vacant places were
finally filled by one _interrex_ after another, appointed by the senate to
keep up the name of government and to hold the elections the moment the
tribunes withdrew their vetoes, or left their office. At the close of the
year Licinius and Sextius were both re-elected but with colleagues on the
side of their antagonists. Some time afterwards it became necessary to let
the other elections proceed. War was threatening,[11] and in order to go to
the assistance of their allies Licinius and Sextius withdrew their vetoes
and ceased their opposition for a time. Six military tribunes were chosen,
three from the liberal and three from the illiberal patricians. The
liberals doubtless received all the votes of the plebeians as they had
no candidates. They had in all probability abstained from running for an
office, bills for the abolition of which were held in abeyance. They showed
increasing inclination to sustain Licinius and his colleague, both by
re-electing them year after year and by at length choosing three other
tribunes with them in favor of the bills. The prospects of the measure were
further brightened by the election of Fabius Ambustus, the father-in-law
of Licinius and his zealous supporter, to the military[12] tribunate. This
seems to have been the seventh year following the proposal of the bills.
This can not be definitely determined, however. During this long period of
struggle, Licinius had learned something. It was constantly repeated[13]
in his hearing that not a plebeian in the whole estate was fit to take
the part in the auspices and the religious ceremonies incumbent upon the
consuls. The same objections had overborne the exertions of Caius Canuleius
three-quarters of a century before. Licinius saw that the only way to
defeat this argument was by opening to the plebeians the honorable office
of _duumvirs_, whose duty and privilege it was[14] to consult the Sibyline
books for the instruction of the people in every season of doubt and peril.
They were, moreover, the presiding officers of the festival of Apollo, to
whose inspirations the holy books of the Sibyl were ascribed, and were
looked up to with honor and respect. This he did by setting forth an
additional bill, proposing the election of _decemvirs_.[15] The passage of
this bill would forever put to rest one question at least. Could he be a
decemvir, he could also be a consul. This bill was joined to the other
three which were biding their time. The strife went on. The opposing
tribunes interposed their vetoes. Finally it seems that all the offices of
tribune were filled with partisans of Licinius, and the bills were likely
to pass when Camillus, the dictator, swelling with wrath against bills,
tribes and tribunes,[16] came forward into the forum. He commanded the
tribunes to see to it that the tribes cast no more votes. But on the
contrary they ordered the people to continue as they had begun. Camillus
ordered his lictors to break up the assembly and proclaim that if a man
lingered in the forum, the dictator would call out every man fit for
service and march from Rome. The tribunes ordered resistance and declared
that if the dictator did not instantly recall his lictors and retract his
proclamation, they, the tribunes, would, according to their right, subject
him to a fine five times larger than the highest rate of the census, as
soon as his dictatorship expired. This was no idle threat, and Camillus
retreated so fairly beaten as to abdicate immediately under the pretense
of faulty auspices.[17] The plebeians adjourned satisfied with their day's
victory. But before they could be again convened some influence was brought
to bear upon them so that when the four bills were presented only the two
concerning land and debts were accepted. This was nothing less than a fine
piece of engineering on the part of the patricians to defeat the whole
movement and could have resulted in nothing less. Licinius was disappointed
but not confounded. With a sneer at the selfishness as well as the
blindness of those who had voted only for what they themselves most wanted
he bade them take heed that they could not eat if they would not drink.[18]
He refused to separate the bills. The consent to their division would
have been equivalent to consenting to the division of the plebeians. His
resolution carried the day. The liberal patricians as well as the plebeians
rallied to his support. A moderate patrician, a relation of Licinius, was
appointed dictator, and a member of the same house was chosen master of the
horse. These events prove that the liberal patricians were in the majority.
Licinius and Sextius were re-elected for the tenth time, A.C. 366, thus
proving that the plebeians had decided to eat and drink.[19]
The fourth bill, concerning the decemvirs was almost instantly laid
before the tribes and carried through them. It was accepted by the higher
assemblies and thus became a law. It is not evident why this bill was
separated from the others, especially when Licinius had declared that they
should not be separated. Possibly it was to smooth the way for the other
three more weighty ones, especially the bill concerning the consulship.[20]
There seems to have been an interruption here caused by an invasion of the
Gauls.[21] As soon as this was over the struggle began again. The tribes
assembled. "Will you have our bills?" asked Licinius and Sextius for the
last time. "We will," was the reply. It was amid more violent conflicts,
however, than had yet arisen that the bills became laws[22] at last.
It takes all the subsequent history of Rome to measure the consequences of
the Revolution achieved by Licinius and Sextius; but the immediate working
of their laws could have been nothing but a disappointment to their
originators and upholders. We can tell little or nothing about the
regard paid to the _decemvirs_. The priestly robes must have seemed an
unprecedented honor to the plebeian. For some ten years the law regarding
the consulship was observed, after which time it was occasionally[23]
violated, but can still be called a success. The laws[24] of relief, as may
be supposed of all such sumptuary enactments, were violated from the first.
No general recovery of the public land from those occupying more than five
hundred[25] jugera ever took place. Consequently there was no general
division of land among the lackland class. Conflicting claims and jealousy
on the part of the poor must have done much to embarrass and prevent the
execution of the law. No system of land survey to distinguish between
_ager publicus_ and _ager privatus_ existed. Licinius Stolo himself was
afterwards convicted of violating his own law.[26] The law respecting debts
met with much the same obstacles. The causes of embarrassment and poverty
being much the same and undisturbed, soon reproduced the effects which no
reduction of interest or installment of principal could effectually remove.
It is not our intention, however, to express any doubt that the enactments
of Licinius, such as they were, might and did benefit the small farmer
and the day laborer.[27] Many were benefited. In the period immediately
following the passing of the law, the authorities watched with some
interest and strictness over the observance of its rules and frequently
condemned the possessors of large herds and occupiers of public domain to
heavy fines.[28] But in the main the rich still grew richer and the poor
and mean, poorer and more contemptible. Such was ever the liberty of the
Roman. For the mean and the poor there was no means of retrieving their
poverty and degradation.
These laws, then, had little or no effect upon the domain question or the
re-distribution of land. They did not fulfil the evident expectation of
their author in uniting the plebeians into one political body. This was
impossible. What they did do was to break up and practically abolish the
patriciate.[29] Henceforth were the Roman people divided into rich and poor
only.
[Footnote 1: Livy, VI, 34.]
[Footnote 2: Livy, VI, 35: "unam de aere alieno, ut deduco eo de capite,
quod usuris pernumeratum esset, id, quod superesset, triennio aequis
portionibus persolveretur."]
[Footnote 3: Livy, VI, 35; Niebuhr, III, p.16; Varro, De R.R., 1: "Nam
Stolonis illa lex, quae vetat plus D jugera habere civem Romanorum." Livy,
VI, 35: "alteram de modo agrorum, ne quis plus quingenta jugera agri
posideret." Marquardt u. Momm., _Röm. Alterthümer,_ IV, S. 102.]
[Footnote 4: Appian, _De Bello Civile_, I, 8.]
[Footnote 5: Livy VI, 35; See Momm., I, 382; Duruy, _Hist. des Romains_,
II, 78.]
[Footnote 6: Livy, VI, 37.]
[Footnote 7: Livy, VI, 35: "creatique tribuni Caius Licinius et Lucius
Sextius promulgavere leges adversus opes patriciorum et pro commodis
plebis."]
[Footnote 8: Ihne, I, 314.]
[Footnote 9: Livy, VI, 35: "Cuncta ingentia, et quae sine certamine
obtineri non possent."]
[Footnote 10: Livy, VI, 35.]
[Footnote 11: Livy, VI, 36.]
[Footnote 12: Livy, VI, 36. Fabius quoque tribunis militum, Stolonis socer,
quarum legum auctor fuerat, earum sua.]
[Footnote 13: Livy, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 14: Appian, _De Bell. Civ._, I, 9.]
[Footnote 15: Momm., I, 240: "decemviri sacris faciundis." Lange, _loc.
cit._]
[Footnote 16: Livy, VI, 38; Momm., _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 17: Livy, VI, 38; Momm., _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 18: Dion Cassius, Fragment, XXXIII, with Reimer's note.]
[Footnote 19: Livy, VI, 42.]
[Footnote 20: Livy, VI, 42: et comitia consulum adversa nobilitate habita,
quibus Lucius Sextius de plebe primus consul factus.]
[Footnote 21: Livy, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 22: Livy, VI, 42; Ovid, Faustus, I, 641, seq.:
"Furius antiquam populi superator Hetrusci
Voverat et voti solverat ante fidem
Causa quod a patribus sumtis secesserat annis
Vulgus; et ipsa suas Roma timebat opes."]
[Footnote 23: Momm., I, 389.]
[Footnote 24: Momm., I, 384.]
[Footnote 25: Arnold, _Roman History_, II, 35; Ihne, _Essay on the Roman
Constitution_, p. 72. Ihne, _Roman Hist._, I, 332-334. Long, I, ch. XI.
Lange, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 26: Livy, VII, 16: "Eodem anno Caius Licinius Stolo a Marco
Popillio Laenate sua legi decem milibus aeris est damnatus, quod mille
jugerum agri cum filio possideret, emancipandoque filium fraudem legi
fecisset." Appian, _Bell. Civ._, 1, 8; "_[Greek: taen gaen es tous
oikeious epi upokrisei dienemon.]_"]
[Footnote 27: Momm., I, 389.]
[Footnote 28: Momm., I, 389, 390.]
[Footnote 29: Momm., I, 389, 390.]
SEC. VIII.--AGRARIAN MOVEMENTS BETWEEN 367 AND 133.
The first agrarian movement after the enactment of lex Licinia took place
in the year 338, after the battle of Veseris in which the Latini and their
allies were completely conquered. According to Livy,[1] the several peoples
engaged in this rebellion were mulcted of a part of their land which was
divided among the plebeians. Each plebeian receiving an allotment in the
territory of the Latini had 2 jugera assigned him, while those in Privernum
received 2-3/4, and those in Falernian territory received 3 jugera each (p.
252). This distribution of domain lands seems to have been spontaneous on
the part of the senate. But it led to grave consequences as the Latini,
indignant at their being despoiled of their lands, resorted again to arms.
The plebeians, moreover, were roused to the verge of rebellion by the
consul Aemilius who had been alienated from the patricians by their
refusing him a triumph, and now strove to ingratiate himself with the
commons by making them dissatisfied with their meagre allotments. The
law, however, was carried into execution, and thus showed that the senate
acquiesced in and even initiated laws when they did not in any way
interfere with their possession, but referred only to territory which had
just been conquered.
_Agrarian Law of Curius._ Beyond the distribution of the _ager publicus_
which formed the basis of the numerous colonies of this period and which
will be considered in their proper place, the next agrarian movement was
that of Curius Dentatus. At the close of the third Samnite War the
people were in great distress, as agricultural pursuits had been greatly
interrupted by continued warfare. Now there seemed to be a chance of
remedying this. Large tracts of land had been taken from the Samnites and
Sabines, and it was now at the disposal of the Roman[2] state for purposes
of colonization and division among the impoverished citizens. In the year
287,[3] a bill was introduced by Manius Curius Dentatus, the plebeian
consul for this year, and hero of the third Samnite War. He proposed
giving to the citizens assignments of land in the Sabine country of seven
jugera[4] each. It is certain that this bill met with great opposition but
we have not been informed as to the causes.[5] It is safe to conclude,
however, that the question was whether assignments of land with full right
of property should be made in districts which the great land-owners wished
to keep open for occupation in order that they might pasture herds thereon.
The senate and the nobility so bitterly opposed the plan that the plebeians
despairing of success, withdrew to the Janiculum and only on account of
threatening war did they consent to the proposals of Quintus Hortensius.[6]
By this move the _lex Hortensia_[7] was passed and, doubtless, the _agraria
lex_ was enacted at the same time although nothing definite is known
concerning this point. The people must have been pacified by some other
means than the mere granting of more political power. Nothing less than a
share of the conquered territory would have satisfied them or induced them
to return and again take up the burden of war.
_Lex Flaminia._ Fifty four years after the enactment of the law of Curius
Dentatus, in the year 232, the tribune Caius Flaminius,[8] the man who
afterwards was consul and fell in the bloody battle of lake Trasimenus,
brought forward and carried a law for the distribution of the _Gallicus
Ager_[9] among the plebeians. This territory[10] had been taken from the
Galli Semnones fifty-one years before and was now occupied as pasture land
by some large Roman families. This territory lay north of Picenum and
extended as far as Ariminum[11](Rimini.) This was an excellent opportunity
for awarding lands to Roman veterans for military service, and thus to
establish a large number of small farms, rather than to leave the land in
the possession of the rich who resided in Rome and, consequently, formed no
frontier protection against the inroads of barbarians from the north. By
alloting the land, the Latin race and Latin tongue would help to Romanize
territory already conquered by Roman arms. The only thing opposed to this
was the possession of the land by the aristocracy. But they had no legal
claim to the land and could be dispossessed without any indemnification.
The senate opposed this measure to the utmost of their ability and, after
all other means had failed, threatened to send an army against the tribune
if he urged his bill through the tribes. They further induced his father to
make use of his _potestas_ in restraining his son.[12] When Flaminius was
bringing up the bill for decision he was arrested by his father. "Come
down, I bid thee," said the father. And the son humbled "by private
authority,"[13] obeyed. It finally became necessary for the plebeians to
take their stand on the formal constitutional law and to cause the _agraria
lex_ to be passed by a vote of the assembly of the tribes without a
previous resolution or subsequent approbation of the senate.[14] Polybius
dates a change for the worse in the Roman constitution from this time.[15]
The relief of the plebeians was further promoted by the foundation[16] of
new colonies.
In the year 200, after Scipio returned as conqueror of Carthage, the senate
decreed that he should be assigned some lands for his soldiers, but Livy
does not tell us where they were to be assigned; whether they were to be
a part of the ancient _ager publicus_ or of the territory of Carthage,
Sicily, or Campania, _i.e._ the new conquests of Rome. He merely says that
for each year of service in Spain or Africa the soldiers were to receive
two jugera each, and that[17] the distributions should be made by the
_decenvirs_. In spite of the insufficiency of these details the passage
reveals to us two important facts:
1. Decemvirs as well as triumvirs were at times appointed to make
distributions of domain lands in accordance with the provisions of an
agrarian law.
2. It reveals the profound modifications which Roman customs had passed
through. The riches which began at this time to flow into Rome by reason
of the many successful wars revolutionized the economic conditions of
the city. It is not necessary to see only a proof of corruption in this
tendency of all classes to grasp for riches and to desire luxury and ease.
We must also consider that comfort was more accessible and that the price
of everything, especially of the necessaries of life, had increased. In
consequence of this it was difficult for soldiers to support themselves
with their pay. The presents of a few sesterces given them as prize money
in no way made sufficient recompense for all the miseries and privations
which they had passed through during their long absence. Grants of land
were the only means of recompensing their military services. This is the
first example that we have found of soldiers being thus rewarded, and it
consequently initiated a custom which became most frequent especially in
the time of the empire. Upon the conquest of Italy which followed the
expedition of Pyrrhus, the Romans found themselves led into a long series
of foreign wars; Sicily furnished the stepping-stone to Africa; Africa to
Spain; all these countries becoming Roman provinces. As soon as the second
Punic war closed, Hannibal formed an alliance with the king of Macedonia.
A war-cloud rose[18] in the east. The Ætolians asked aid from Rome, and
statesmen could foretell that it would be impossible for Roman armies not
to interfere between Greece and Macedonia. But these countries had been
from ancient times most intimately connected with the orient, _i.e._, Asia,
where the Seleucidae still ruled, so that a war with Greece, which was
inevitable, could not fail to bring on a war with the successors of
Alexander, and, these hostilities once engaged in, who could say where
these accidents of war would cease, or when Roman arms could be laid aside?
In this critical condition it was prudent to attach the soldiers to the
republic by bonds and interests the most intimate, to make them proprietors
and to assure subsistence to their families during their long absence.
These wars did not much resemble those of the early republic which had for
a theatre of war the country in the immediate vicinity of Rome.
The senate continued to take the initiative in agrarian movements. In 172,
after the close of the wars against the Ligurians and Gauls, we again see
the senate spontaneously decreeing a new division of the lands. A part of
the territory of Liguria and Cisalpine Gaul was confiscated and a _senatus
consultum_ ordered a distribution of this land to the commons. The praetor
of the city A. Atilius, was authorized to appoint _decemvirs_, whose names
Livy gives, to assign ten jugera to Roman citizens and three jugera to
Latin[19] allies. Thus the senate, with a newly-born sagacity, rendered
useless the demands of the tribune and recognized the justice and the
utility of the agrarian laws against which it had so long protested.
Indeed, it justified the propositions of the first author of an agrarian
law by admitting to a share in the conquered lands the Latin allies who had
so often contributed to their growth. This is the last agrarian law which
Livy mentions. The Persian war broke out in this year, and an account of
it fills the remaining books of this author which have come down to
us. However, prior to the proposition of Tiberius Gracchus, we find
in Varro[20] the mention of a new assignment of land of seven jugera
_viritim_, made by a tribune named Licinius in the year 144; but the author
has given such a meagre mention of it that we are unable to determine where
these lands were located. If we join to these facts the cession of public
territories to the creditors of the state, in 200, we shall have mentioned
all agrarian laws and distributions of territory which took place before
the _lex Sempronia Tiberiana_ in 133.
_Condition of the Country at the time of the Gracchan Rogations._ During
the period between 367 and 133 we find no record of serious disputes
between the patricians and commons. Indeed, the senate usually took the
lead in popular measures; lands were assigned without any demand on the
part of the plebeians. We must not be deceived by this seeming harmony. In
the midst of this apparent calm a radical change was taking place in Roman
society. It is necessary for us to understand this new condition of affairs
in the republic before it will be possible to comprehend the rogations of
the Gracchi.
One of the greatest dangers to the republic at this time reveals itself in
the claims[21] of the Italians. These people had poured out their blood
for Rome; they had contributed more than the Romans themselves to the
accomplishing of those rapid conquests which, after the subjugation of
Italy, quickly extended the power of Rome. In what way had they been
rewarded? After the terrible devastations which afflicted Italy in the
Hannibalic war had ceased, the Italian allies found themselves ruined.
Whilst Latium, which contained the principal part of the old tribes of
citizens, had suffered comparatively little, a large portion of Samnium,
Apulia, Campania, and more particularly of Lucania and Bruttium, was almost
depopulated; and the Romans in punishing the unfaithful "allies" had acted
with ruthless cruelty.[22] When at length peace was concluded, large
districts were uncultivated and uninhabited. This territory, being either
confiscated from the allies for taking part with Hannibal, or deserted by
the colonists, swelled the _ager publicus_ of Rome, and was either given to
veterans[23] or occupied by Roman capitalists, thus increasing the revenues
of a few nobles.
If a nation is in a healthful condition politically and economically so
that the restorative vigor of nature is not impeded by bad restrictive
laws, the devastations of land and losses of human life are quickly
repaired. We might the more especially have expected this in a climate
so genial and on a soil so fertile as that of Italy. But Roman laws so
restricted the right of buying and selling land that in every Italian
community none but members of that community, or Roman citizens, could[24]
buy or inherit. This restriction upon free competition, by giving the
advantage to Roman citizens, was in itself sufficient to ruin the
prosperity of every Italian town. This law operated continually and
unobservedly and resulted in placing,[25] year by year, a still larger
quantity of the soil of Italy in the hands of the Roman aristocracy.
In order to palliate the evils of conquest or at least to hide their
conditions of servitude, the Romans had accorded to a part of the Italians
the title of allies, and to others the privileges of _municipia_.[26] These
privileges were combined in a very skillful manner in the interest of Rome,
but this skill did not hinder the people from perceiving that they depended
upon the mere wish of the conquerors and consequently were not rights, but
merely favors to be revoked at will. The Latini, who had been the first
people conquered by Rome and who had almost always remained faithful,
enjoyed under the name of _jus Latii_ considerable privileges. They held in
great[27] part the civil and political rights of Roman citizens. They were
able by special services individually to become Roman citizens and thus
to obtain the full _jus Romanum_. There were other peoples who, although
strangers to Latium, had been admitted, by reason of their services[28] to
Rome, to participate in the benefits of the _jus Latii_. The other peoples,
admitted merely to the _jus Italicum_, did not enjoy any of the civil or
political rights of Roman citizens, nor any of the privileges of Latin[29]
allies; at best they kept some souvenirs of their departed independence in
their interior administration, but otherwise were considered as subjects
of Rome. And yet it was for the aggrandizement of this city that they shed
their blood upon all the fields of battle which it pleased Rome to choose;
it was for the glory and extension of the Roman power that they gained
these conquests in which they had no share. Some who had attempted to
regain their independence were not even accorded the humble privileges of
the other people of Italy, but were reduced to the state of prefectures.
These were treated as provinces and governed by prefects or proconsuls
sent[30] out from Rome. Such were Capua, Bruttium, Lucania, the greater
part of Samnium, and Cisalpine Gaul, which country, indeed, was not even
considered as a part of Italy. Those who had submitted without resistance
to the domination of the Romans, and had rendered some services to them,
had bestowed upon them the title of _municipia_.[31] These _municipia_
governed themselves and were divided into two classes:
(1.) _Municipia sine suffragio_, for example, Caere and Etruria, had
only interior privileges; their inhabitants could not vote at Rome and,
consequently, could not[32] participate in the exercise of sovereignty.
(2.) _Municipia cum suffragio_ had, outside of their political and civil
rights, the important right of voting[33] at Rome. These citizens of
villages had then, as Cicero said of the citizens of Arpinum, two
countries, one _ex natura_, the other _ex jure_. Lastly, there were
some cities in the south of Italy, _i.e._ in Magna Graecia, that had
received[34] the name of federated cities. They did not appear to be
subject to Rome; their contingents of men and money were looked upon as
voluntary[35] gifts; but, in reality, they were under the domination of
Rome, and had, at Rome, defenders or patrons chosen because of their
influence with the Roman citizens and charged with maintaining their
interests. Such was the system adopted by Rome. It would have been easy for
a person in the compass of a few miles to find villages having the _jus
Latii_, others with simply the _jus Italicum_, colonies, prefectures,
municipia _cum_ et _sine suffragio_. The object of the Romans was evident.
They planned to govern. Cities alike in interests and patriotic motives
were separated by this diversity of rights and the jealousies and hatreds
which resulted from it. Concord, which was necessary to any united and
general insurrection, was rendered impossible between towns, some of which
were objects of envy, others, of pity. Their condition, moreover, was
such that all, even the most fortunate, had something to gain by showing
themselves faithful; and all, even the most wretched, had something to
fear if they did not prove tractable. These Italians, with all the varied
privileges and burdens enumerated above, far outnumbered the Roman
citizens.[36] A comparison of the numbers of the census of 115 and that of
70 shows that the numbers of Italians and Romans were[37] as three to two.
All these Italians aspired to Roman citizenship, to enjoy the right to vote
to which some of their number had been admitted, and the struggle which
was sometime to end in their complete emancipation had already commenced.
During the first centuries of Roman history, Rome was divided into two
classes, patricians and plebeians. The plebeians by heroic efforts had
broken down the barriers that separated them from the patricians. The
privilege of intermarriage, the possibility of obtaining the highest
offices of the state, the substitution of the _comitia tributa_ for the
other two assemblies, had not made of Rome "an unbridled democracy," but
all these benefits obtained by tribunician agitation, all the far-reaching
advances gained by force of laws and not of arms, had constituted at Rome a
single people and created a true Roman nation. There were now at Rome only
rich and poor, nobles and proletariat. With intelligence and ability a
plebeian could aspire to the magistracies and thence to the senate. Why
should not the Italians be allowed the same privilege? It was neither just
nor equitable nor even prudent to exclude them from an equality of rights
and the common exercise of civil[38] and political liberty. The Gracchi
were the first to comprehend the changed state of affairs and the result of
Roman conquest and administration in Italy. Their demands in favor of the
Italians were profoundly politic. The Italians would have demanded, with
arms in their hands, that which the Gracchi asked for them, had not this
attempt been made. They failed; Fulvius[39] Flaccus, Marius,[40] and Livius
Drusus[41] failed in the same attempt, being opposed both by the nobility
and the plebs.
The agrarian laws, as we have seen, had been proposed by the senate, in the
period which we are considering. How was it then that the Gracchi had been
compelled to take the initiative and that the senate had opposed them? This
contradiction is more apparent than real. It explains itself in great part
by the following considerations. Upon the breaking down of the aristocracy
of birth, the patriciate, the senate was made accessible to the plebeians
who had filled the curule magistracies and were possessed of 800,000
sesterces. Knights were also eligible to the senate to fill vacancies, and
it was this fact which caused the equestrian order to be called _seminarium
senatus_. For some time the new nobles, in order to strengthen their
victory and make it permanent, had formed an alliance with the plebeians.
For this reason were made the concessions and distributions of land which
the old senators were unable to hinder. These concessions were the work of
the plebeians who had been admitted to the senate. But when their position
was assured and it was no longer necessary for them to make concessions
to the commons in order to sustain themselves, they manifested the same
passions that the patricians had shown before them. Livy has expressed the
situation very clearly: "These noble plebeians had been initiated into the
same mysteries, and despised the people as soon as they themselves ceased
to be despised by the patricians."[42] Thus, then, the unity and fusion
which had been established by the tribunician laws disappeared and there
again existed two peoples, the rich and the poor.
If we examine into the elements of these two distinct populations,
separated by the pride of wealth and the misery and degradation of poverty,
we shall understand this. The new nobility was made up partially of the
descendants of the ancient patrician _gentes_ who had adapted themselves to
the modifications and transformations in society. Of these persons, some
had adopted the ideas of reform; they had flattered the lower classes
in order to obtain power; they profited by their consulships and their
prefectures to increase or at least conserve their fortunes. Others having
business capacity gave themselves up to gathering riches; to usurious
speculations which at this time held chief place among the Romans. Even
Cato was a usurer and recommended usury as a means of acquiring wealth. Or
they engaged in vast speculations in land, commerce, and slaves, as Crassus
did a little later. The first mentioned class was the least numerous. To
those nobles who gave their attention to money-getting must be added those
plebeians who elevated themselves from the masses by means[43] of the
curule magistracies. These were insolent and purse-proud, and greedy to
increase their wealth by any means in their power. Next to these two
divisions of the nobility came those whom the patricians had been wont
to despise and to relegate to the very lowest rank under the name of
_aerarii_; merchants,[44] manufacturers, bankers, and farmers of the
revenues. These men were powerful by reason of their union and community of
interests, and money which they commanded. They formed a third order and
even became so powerful as to control the senate and, at times, the whole
republic. In the time of the Punic wars the senate had been obliged to let
go unpunished the crimes committed by the publican Posthumius and the means
which he had employed in order to enrich himself at the expense of the
republic, because it was imprudent to offend[45] the order of publicans.
Thus constituted an order or guild, they held it in their hands at will to
advance or to withhold the money for carrying on wars or sustaining the
public credit. In this way they were the masters of the state. They also
grasped the public lands, as they were able to command such wealth that no
individual could compete with them. They thus became the only farmers of
the domain lands, and they did not hesitate to cease paying all tax on
these. Who was able to demand these rents from them? The senate? But they
either composed the senate or controlled it. The magistrates? There was no
magistracy but that of wealth. The tribunes and the people? These they had
disarmed by frequent grants of land of two to seven jugera each, and by the
establishment of numerous colonies. This was beyond doubt the real reason
for their frequent distributions. They had all been made from land recently
conquered. The ancient _ager_ had not been touched, and little by little
the Licinian law had fallen into disuetude.
[Footnote 1: Livy, VIII, 11, 12.]
[Footnote 2: Ihne, I, 447.]
[Footnote 3: I have followed Ihne and Arnold in giving this date, but there
is reason for placing it later as Valerius Maximus says, IV, 3,5: "Manius
Curius cum Italia Pyrrhum regem exegisset ... decretis a senatu septenis
jugeribus agri populo."]
[Footnote 4: "Manii Curii nota conscio est, perniciosum intellegi civem
cui septem jugera non essent satis." Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XVIII.; Aurelius
Victor, De Viris Illus.: Septenis "jugeribus viritim dividendis, quibus qui
contentus non esset, eum perniciosum intellegi civem, nota et praeclare
concione Manius Curius dictitabat." The same author speaks of four jugera
being given by Curius, "Quaterna dono agri jugera viritim populo dividit."
Juvenal implies a distribution of two jugera; Sat. XIV, V, 161-164:
"Mox etiam fructis aetate, ac Punica passis
Proelia vel Pyrrhum immanem glacosque Molossos,
Tandem pro multis vix jugera bina dabantur
Vulneribus Merces ea sanguinis atque labores."]
[Footnote 5: Appian, III, 5: Zonarius, VIII, 2.]
[Footnote 6: Ihne, I, 447.]
[Footnote 7: Gellius, XV, 27: "Postea lex Hortensia late, qua cautum
est, ut plebisipa universum populum tenerent." Marquardt u. Momm., _Röm.
Alter.,_ IV, 102.]
[Footnote 8: Polyb., II, 21, 8.]
[Footnote 9: Varro, De R.R., I, 2; De L.L., VI, 5.]
[Footnote 10: Ihne, IV, 26. See Long, I, 157, who disputes this statement.]
[Footnote 11: Varro, De R.R., I, 2.; De L.L., VI, 5.]
[Footnote 12: Val. Max., V, 4, 5.]
[Footnote 13: 1 Val. Max., V, 4, 5; Cicero, _De Juventute,_ II, 17.]
[Footnote 14: Ihne, IV, 26; Cicero, _De Senectute,_ 4.]
[Footnote 15: Polybius, II, 21.]
[Footnote 16: Livy, Epit., XX, 19.]
[Footnote 17: "De agris militum ejus decretum, ut quod quisque eorum
annos in Hispania aut in Africa militasset, in singulos annos bina jugera
acciperet, eum agrum decemviri assignarent." Livy, XXXI, 19.]
[Footnote 18: Momm., II, 230-241.]
[Footnote 19: Livy, XLII, 4: "Eodem anno, quum agri Ligustini et Gallici,
quod bello captum erat, aliquantum vacaret, senatus-consultum factum ut is
ager viritim ex senatus consulto creavit A. Atilius praetor urbanus....
Divers[=e]runt dena jugera in singulos, sociis nominis Latini terna."]
[Footnote 20: Ihne, IV, 370.]
[Footnote 21: Livy, XXXI, 4, 1; Ihne, IV, 370-372.]
[Footnote 22: Livy, XXXI, 4, 1; Ihne, IV, 370-372.]
[Footnote 23: Livy, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 24: Ihne, IV, 148.]
[Footnote 25: Ihne, IV, 371.]
[Footnote 26: Ihne, IV, 354; Momm., III, 277.]
[Footnote 27: Momm., I, 151-162; Ihne, IV, 179. Marquardt u. Momm., IV,
26-27, 63.]
[Footnote 28: Livy, IX, 43, 23; Ihne, IV, 181.]
[Footnote 29: Ihne, IV, 185-186. Marquardt u. Momm., 46, 60.]
[Footnote 30: Marquardt u. Momm., IV, 41-43.]
[Footnote 31: Ibid, IV, 26.]
[Footnote 32: Marquardt u. Momm., IV, 27-34.]
[Footnote 33: Ibid.]
[Footnote 34: Marquardt u. Momm., IV, 44.]
[Footnote 35: Marquardt u. Momm., IV, 45-46.]
[Footnote 36: Momm., _Röm. Ge._, II, 225.]
[Footnote 37: Ihne, IV, 370.]
[Footnote 38: Momm., Lange, Ihne, Long--as given.]
[Footnote 39: Momm., III, 132.]
[Footnote 40: Momm., III, 252, 422.]
[Footnote 41: Momm., III, 281.]
[Footnote 42: Livy, XXII, 34.]
[Footnote 43: Ihne, IV, 354-356.]
[Footnote 44: Ihne, IV, 354-356.]
[Footnote 45: Livy, XXV, 3: "Patres ordinem publicanorum in tali tempore
offensum nolebant."]
(a) _Extension of Territory by Conquest between 367 and 133_.
1. Caere submitted in 353, yielding all southern Etruria to Rome.
2. Volcian territory and all Latium fell to Rome at the close of the Latin
war in 339.
3. Capua, taken in 337.
4. Cales, taken in 334. In this struggle all Campania became Roman
territory.
5. Sabine territory submitted in 290.
6. Tarentum, captured in 272.
7. Rhegium, captured in 270.
8. The Galli Senones were destroyed in 283 and their whole territory
(Umbria) was confiscated.
9. In 293, Liguria and Transpadana Gallia were added to the Roman
confederation.
10. In 222, Italy was extended to its natural boundary, the Alps, by the
subjugation of the Gauls north of the Po. Of the entire territory of Italy,
93,640 square miles, fully one-third belonged to Rome. Thus, in the 287
years of the Republic, Roman territory had expanded from 115, to 31,200
square[1] miles.
At the close of the war with Hannibal, Rome further added to her territory
by the confiscation of the greater part of the Gallic territory, Campania,
Samnium, Apulia, Lucania, and Bruttii.
(b) _Colonies Founded between 367 and 133._
(a). CIVIC COLONIES.
--------------+---------------+--------+-------+---------+---------+-------
| | | NO. | SIZE OF | |
COLONIES. | PLACE. | DATES. | OF C. | ALLOT. | JUGERA. |ACRES.
--------------+---------------+--------+-------+---------+---------+-------
| | | | | |
Antiuim. | Latium. | 338 | 300 | 2 | 600 | 375
Anxur. | " | 329 | 300 | 2 | 600 | 375
Minturnae. | Campania. | 296 | 300 | 2 | 600 | 375
Sinuessa. | " | 296 | 300 | 2 | 600 | 375
Sena Gallica. | Umbria. | 283 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Castrum Novum.| Picenum. | 283 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Aesium. | Umbria. | 247 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Alsium. | Etruria. | 247 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Fregenae. | " | 245 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Pyrgi. | " | 191 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Puteoli. | Campania. | 194 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Volturnum. | " | 194 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Liternum. | " | 194 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Buxentum. | Lucania. | 194 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Salernum. | Campania. | 194 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Sipontum. | " | 194 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Tempsa. | Bruttii. | 194 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Croton. | " | 194 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Potentia. | Picenum. | 184 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Pisaurum. | Umbria. | 184 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Parma. | Gall. Cisalp. | 183 |1,000 | 6 | 6,000 | 3,750
Mutina. | " " | 183 |1,000 | 6 | 6,000 | 3,750
Saturnia. | Etruria. | 183 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Graviscae. | " | 181 | 300 | 5 | 1,500 | 938
Luna. | " | 173 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Auximum. | Picenum. | 157 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
--------------+---------------+--------+-------+---------+---------+-------
| Total..|38,900 |30,500
-----------------------------------------------+---------+---------+-------
(b). LATIN COLONIES.
------------+-----------------+--------+-------+---------+---------+-------
| | | NO. | SIZE OF | |
COLONIES. | PLACE. | DATES. | OF C.| ALLOT. | JUGERA. | ACRES.
------------+-----------------+--------+-------+---------+---------+-------
Calles. | Campania. | 334 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Fregellae. | Latium. | 328 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Luceria. | Apulia. | 314 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Suessa. | Latium. | 313 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Pontiae. | Isle of Latium. | 313 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Saticula. | Samnium. | 313 | 300 | 4 | 1,200 | 750
Sora. | Latium. | 312 | 4,000 | 4 | 16,000 | 10,000
Alba. | " | 303 | 6,000 | 6 | 36,000 | 22,500
Narnia. | Umbria. | 299 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Carseoli. | Sabini. | 298 | 4,000 | 6 | 24,000 | 15,000
Venusia. | Apulia. | 291 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Hatria. | Picenum. | 289 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Cosa. | Campania. | 273 | 1,000 | 6 | 6,000 | 3,750
Paestum. | Lucania. | 273 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Ariminum. | Agr. Gallicus. | 268 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Beneventum. | Samnium. | 268 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Firmum. | Picenum. | 264 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Aesernia. | Samnium. | 263 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Brundisium. | Calabria. | 244 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Spoletium. | Umbria. | 241 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Cremona. | Gaul. | 218 | 6,000 | 6 | 36,000 | 22,500
Placentia. | " | 218 | 6,000 | 6 | 36,000 | 22,500
Copiae. | Lucania. | 193 | 300 | 6 | 1,800 | 1,125
Bononia. | Gaul. | 192 | 3,000 | 6 | 18,000 | 11,250
Aquileia. | " | 181 | 4,500 | 6 | 27,000 | 16,875
------------+-----------------+--------+-------+---------+---------+-------
Total ...................|226,000 |141,250
Civic Colonies ..........| 38,900 | 30,500
|---------|-------
Grand Total .............|264,900 |171,750
| | or
| | 268.36
| |Sq. Mi.
---------------------------------------------------------+---------+-------
[Footnote 1: I have not here added Roman conquests outside of the peninsula
of Italy, as these conquests were not treated as Roman territory until
nearly a century later.]
SEC. 9.--LATIFUNDIA.
"After having pillaged the world as praetors or consuls during time of war,
the nobles again pillaged their subjects as governors in time of peace;[1]
and upon their return to Rome with immense riches they employed them
in changing the modest heritage of their fathers into domains vast as
provinces. In villas, which they were wont to surround with forests, lakes
and mountains ... where formerly a hundred families lived at ease, a single
one found itself restrained. In order to increase his park, the noble
bought at a small price the farm of an old wounded soldier or peasant
burdened with debt, who hastened to squander, in the taverns of Rome, the
modicum of gold which he had received. Often he took the land without
paying anything.[2] An ancient writer tells us of an unfortunate involved
in a law suit with a rich man because the latter, discommoded by the bees
of the poor man, his neighbor, had destroyed them. The poor man protested
that he wished to depart and establish his swarms elsewhere, but that
nowhere was he able to find a small field where he would not again have
a rich man for a neighbor. The nabobs of the age, says Columella, had
properties which they were unable to journey round on horseback in a day,
and an inscription recently found at Viterba, shows that an aqueduct ten
miles long did not traverse the lands of any new proprietors.... The small
estate gradually disappeared from the soil of Italy, and with it the
sturdy population of laborers.... Spurius Ligustinus, a centurian, after
twenty-two campaigns, at the age of more than fifty years, did not have for
himself, his wife, and eight children more than a jugerum of land and a
cabin."[3]
To this masterly sketch quoted from Duruy, we can but add a few facts.
Pliny affirms that under Nero only six men possessed the half of Africa.[4]
Seneca, who himself possessed an immense fortune, says, concerning the rich
men of his time, that they did not content themselves with possessing the
lands that formerly had supported an entire people; they were wont to turn
the course of rivers in order to conduct them through their possessions.
They[5] desired even to embrace seas within their vast domains. We must
here, it is true, make some allowance for rhetoric. So, too, in the
writings of Petronius, some allowance for satire must be made, where he
represents the clerk of Trimalchio making a report of that which has taken
place in a single day upon one of the latter's farms near Cumae. Here on
the 7th of the calends[6] of July, were born 30 boys and 40 girls; 500,000
bushels of wheat were harvested and 500 oxen were yoked. The clerk goes on
to say that a fire had recently broken out in the _Gardens of Pompey_, when
he is interrupted by Trimalchio asking when the _Gardens of Pompey_
had been purchased for him, and is informed that they had been in his
possession for a year.[7] So it appears that Trimalchio, in whom Petronius
has personified the pride, the greed, and the vices of the rich men of his
time, did not know that he was the possessor of a magnificent domain. In
another place Petronius causes Trimalchio to say that everything which
could appeal to the appetite of his companions is raised upon one of
his farms which he has not yet visited and which is situated in the
neighborhood of Terracina and Tarentum, towns[8] which are separated by a
distance of 300 miles. Finally, led on by his immoderate desire to augment
his riches and increase his possessions, the hero of Petronius asks but one
thing before he dies, i.e., to add Apulia[9] to his domains; he, however,
admits that he would not take it amiss to join Sicily to some lands which
he owned in that locality or to be able, should envy not check him, to pass
into Africa[10] without departing from his own possessions. All this has
a basis of fact. Trimalchio would never have been created, had not the
favorite freedmen of Nero crushed the people by their luxury, debauches,
and scandals.
But the condition of society pictured by Seneca and Petronius is that of
the first century of the Christian era and might not be taken to represent
the condition of affairs in the second century B.C., had we not some data
which go to prove the concentration of property, the disparity between
classes, and the depopulation of Italy within the same century as the
Gracchi. Cicero was not considered one of the richest men in Rome, yet he
possessed many villas, and he has himself told us that one of them cost
him 3,500,000 sesterces, about $147,000.[11] Cornelia, the mother of the
Gracchi, had a country residence in the vicinity of Micenum which cost[12]
75,000 drachmae ($14,000); Lucullus some years afterwards bought it for
500,200 drachmae ($100,040). According to Cicero,[13] Crassus had a fortune
of 100,000,000 sesterces ($4,200,000). This does not astonish us when we
see upon the _via Appia,_ near the ruins of the circus of Caracalla and but
a short distance from the Catacombs of St. Sebastian and the fountain of
Aegeria, the still important remains of the tomb of Caecilia Metella,
daughter of Metellus Creticus and wife of the tribune Crassus, as the
inscription testifies. It is a vast "funereal fortress" constructed of
precious marble, and which gives us the first example of the luxury
afterwards so common among the Romans. Then, too, we remember that Crassus
was wont to say that no one was rich who was not able to support an army
with his revenues, to raise six legions and a great number of auxiliaries,
both infantry and cavalry.[14]
Pliny confirms this statement concerning Crassus, but adds that Sulla was
even richer.[15] Plutarch gives us fuller details and also explains the
origin of the colossal fortune of Crassus. According to him Crassus had
300 talents ($345,000), with which to commence. Upon his departure for
the Parthian war in which he lost his life, he made an inventory of his
property and found that he was possessed of 7,100 talents, $8,165,000,
double what Cicero attributes to him. How did Crassus increase his fortune
so enormously? Plutarch says that he bought the property confiscated
by Sulla at a very low figure. Then, he had a great number of slaves
distinguished for their talents; lecturers, writers, bankers, business men,
physicians, and hotel-keepers, who turned over to him the benefits which
they realized in their diverse industries. Moreover, he had among his
slaves 500 masons and architects. Rome was built almost entirely of wood
and the houses were very high, consequently fires were frequent and
destructive. As soon as a fire broke out, Crassus hastened to the place
with his throng of slaves, bought the now burning buildings--as well as
those threatened--at a song, and then set his slaves to work extinguishing
the fires. By this means he had become possessed of a large[16] part of
Rome.
Some other facts confirm that which Plutarch tells us of Crassus.
Athenaeus[17] says that it was not rare to find Roman citizens possessed
of 20,000 slaves. At the commencement of the civil war between Cæsar and
Pompey, the future dictator found opposed to him, in Picenum, Domitius[18]
Ahenobarbus at the head of thirty cohorts. Domitius seeing his troops
wavering, promised to each of them four jugera out of his own possessions,
and a proportionate part to the centurians and veterans. What must have
been the fortune of a man who was able to distribute out of his own lands,
and surely without bankrupting himself, about 100,000 jugera?
[Footnote 1: Cicero says these exactions were common and that the provinces
were even restrained from complaining. Verres apologized for his exactions
by saying that he simply followed the common example. In Verrem, II, 1-3,
17.]
[Footnote 2: "Parentes aut parvi liberi militum, ut quisque potentiori
confinis erat, sedibus pellebantur." Sall., _Jugertha_, 41. Horace, Ode II,
18.]
[Footnote 3: Duruy, _Hist. des Romains_, II, 46-47.]
[Footnote 4: "Sex domini semissem Africae possidebant." _Hist. Nat._,
XVIII, 7.]
[Footnote 5: Seneca, Epist., 89.]
[Footnote 6: Petronius, Sat., 48: VII. calendas sextilis in praedio Cumano,
quod est Trimalchionis, nati sunt pueri, XXX, puellae, XL; sublata in
horreum, ex area, tritici millia modium quingenta; boves domiti quingenti
... eodem die incendium factum est in hortis Pompeianis, ortum ex aedibus
nastae, villici.]
[Footnote 7: Quid? inquit Trimalchio: quando mihi Pompeiani horti emti
sunt? Anno priore, inquit actuarius. (_Ibid._ 53.)]
[Footnote 8: Vinum, inquit, si non placet, mutabo; vos illud, oportet
faciatis. Deorum beneficio n[=o]n emo, sed nune, quidquid ad salivam facit,
in suburbano nascitur eo quod ego adhue non navi. Dicitur confine esse
Tarracinensibus et Tarentinis.]
[Footnote 9: Quod si contigerit Apuliae fundos jungere, satis vivus
pervenero, _(Ibid. _77.)]
[Footnote 10: Nunc conjungere agellis Siciliam volo, ut quun Africam
libuerit ire, per meos fines navigem. Sat.,48.]
[Footnote 11: Ad Fam., V, 6: "quod de Crasso domum emissem emi eam ipsam
domum H.S., XXXV."]
[Footnote 12: Plutarch, _Life of Marius._]
[Footnote 13: De Repub., III, 7: Cur autem, si pecuniae modus statuendus
fuit feminis, P. Crassi filia posset habere, si unica patri esset, aeris
millies, salva lege?]
[Footnote 14: Cicero, _Paradoxia_, VI.]
[Footnote 15: Pliny, _Hist. Nat.,_XXXIII, 10.]
[Footnote 16: Plutarch, _Crassus_, c. 1 and 2.]
[Footnote 17: Athenaeus, _Deipnosophistae,_VI, 104.]
[Footnote 18: Cæsar, _Bell. Civ.,_I, 17.]
SEC. 10.--THE INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY.
The last of the evils which we wish to mention as bringing about the
deplorable condition of the plebeians at the time of the Gracchi, and which
brought more degradation and ruin in its train than all the others, is
slavery. Licinius Stolo had attempted in vain to combat it. Twenty-four
centuries of fruitless legislation since his death has scarcely yet taught
the most enlightened nations that it is a waste of energy to regulate by
law the greatest crime against humanity, so long as the conditions which
produced it remain the same. The Roman legions, sturdy plebeians, marched
on to the conquest of the world. For what? To bring home vast throngs of
captives who were destined, as slaves, to eat the bread, to sap the life
blood, of their conquerors. The substitution of slaves for freemen in the
labors of the city and country, in the manual arts and industries, grew in
proportion to the number of captives sold in the markets of Rome. All the
rich men followed more or less the example of Crassus; they had among their
slaves, weavers, carvers, embroiderers, painters, architects, physicians,
and teachers. Suetonius tells us that Augustus wore no clothing save that
manufactured by slaves in his own house. Atticus hired his slaves to the
public in the capacity of copyists. Cicero used slaves as amanuenses. The
government employed slaves in the subordinate posts in administration; the
police, the guard of monuments and arsenals, the manufacture of arms and
munitions of war, the building of navies, etc. The priests of the temples
and the colleges of pontiffs had their familiae of slaves.
Thus in the city, plebeians found no employment. Competition was impossible
between fathers of families and slaves who labored _en masse _in the vast
work-shops of their masters, with no return save the scantiest subsistence,
no families, no cares, and most of all no army service. In the country it
was still worse. It would appear that none but slaves were employed in the
cultivation of the land. Doubtless the number of slaves in Italy has been
greatly exaggerated, but it is certain that the substitution of slave
labor for free, was an old fact when Licinius[1] attempted by the formal
disposition of his law to check the evil. In the first centuries of Rome,
slaves must have been scarce. They were still dear in the time of Cato,
and even Plutarch mentions as a proof of the avarice of the illustrious[2]
censor, that he never paid more than 15,000 drachmae for a slave. After the
great conquests of the Romans, in Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, Greece, and the
Orient, the market went down by reason of the multitude of human beings
thrown upon it. An able-bodied, unlettered man could be bought for the
price of an ox. Such were the men of Spain, Thrace, and Sardinia. Educated
slaves from Greece and the East brought a higher price. We learn from
Horace, that his slave Davus whom he has rendered so celebrated, cost him
500 drachmae.[3] Diodorus of Siculus says that the rich caused their slaves
to live by their own exertions. According to him the knights employed great
bands of slaves in Sicily, both for agricultural purposes and for herding
stock, but they furnished them with so little food that they must either
starve or live by brigandage. The governors of the island did not dare to
punish these slaves for fear of the powerful order which owned them.[4]
Slave labor was thus adopted for economic reasons, and, for the same
reasons, agriculture in Italy was abandoned for stock raising.
Says Varro:[5] "Fathers of families rather delight in circuses and theatres
than in farming and grape culture. Therefore, we pay that wheat necessary
for our subsistence be imported from Africa and Sardinia; we pick our
grapes in the isles of Cos and Chios. In this land where our fathers
who founded Rome instructed their children in agriculture, we see the
descendants of those skillful cultivators, by reason of avarice and in
contempt of laws, transferring arable lands into pasture fields, perhaps
ignorant of the fact that agriculture and fatherland were one."
Fewer men were needed for the care of these pasture lands; but the evil did
not stop here. Little by little these pasture lands were transformed into
mere pleasure grounds attached to villas. This had already begun to take
place as early as the second Punic war, when the plains of Sinuessa[6] and
Falernia were cultivated rather for pleasure than the necessaries of life;
so that the army of Fabius could find nothing upon which to sustain
itself. Under these influences the plebeians, in 133, had become merely a
turbulent, restless mass, but full of the activity and the energy which
had characterized them in the early centuries of the republic. They were
composed chiefly of the descendants of the ancient plebeian families,
decimated by wars and by misery. They were the heirs of those for whom
Spurius Cassius, Terentillius Arsa, Virginius, Licinius Stolo, Publilius
Philo, and Hortensius had endured so many conflicts and even shed their
blood; but they had become brutalized by poverty, debauchery, and crime.
No longer able to support themselves by labor, they had become beggars and
vagabonds.
[Footnote 1: M. Bureau de la Malle, _Ec. polit. des Romains,_ch. 15, p.
143; ch. 2, p.231.]
[Footnote 2: Plutarch, _Cato the Censor,_6 and 7.]
[Footnote 3: Horace, Sat. II, 7; v. 42-43: "Quid? si me stultior ipso
quingentis empto drachmis, deprehenderis."]
[Footnote 4: Diodorus, Siculus, Fg. of Bk. XXXIV.]
[Footnote 5: Varro, _De R.R. Proem. _3, 4.]
[Footnote 6: Livy, XXII, 15.]
SEC. 11.--LEX SEMPRONIA TIBERIANA.
In 133, more than two centuries after the enactment of the law of Licinius
Stolo, Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the people for that year, brought
forward a bill which was in fact little less than a renewal of the old law.
It provided that no one should occupy more than five hundred jugera of the
_ager publicus, _with the proviso that any father could reserve[1] 250
jugera for each son.[2] This law differed from that of Licinius in that
it guaranteed permanent possession of this amount to the occupier and his
heirs forever.[3] Other clauses were subjoined providing for the payment[4]
of some equivalent to the rich for the improvements and the buildings upon
the surrendered estates, and ordering the division of the domain thus
surrendered among the poorer citizens in lots of 30 jugera each, on
the condition that their portions should be inalienable.[5] They bound
themselves to use the land for agricultural purposes and to pay a moderate
rent to the state. It appears that the Italians were not excluded from the
benefit of this law.[6]
The design of this bill was to recruit the ranks of the Romans by drafts of
freeholders from among the Latins. Such as had been reduced to poverty were
to be restored to independence. Such as had been sunk beneath oppression
were to be lifted up to liberty.[7] No more generous scheme had ever been
brought before the Romans. None ever met with more determined opposition,
and for this there was much reason. There might have been some like the
tribune's friends ready to part with the lands bequeathed to them by their
fathers; but where one was willing to confess, a hundred stood ready to
deny the claim upon them. Nor had they any such demands to meet as those
of the olden times. Then the plebeians were a firm and compact body which
demanded a share of recent conquests that their own blood and courage had
gained. Now it was a loose and feeble body of various members waiting for
a share in land long since conquered, while their patron rather than their
leader exerted himself for them.
Tiberius, like Licinius, met with violent opposition, but he had not like
him the patience and the fortitude to wait the slower but safer process of
legitimate agitation. He adopted a course[8] which is always dangerous and
especially so in great political movements. Satisfied with the justice of
his bill and stung by taunts and incensed by opposition, he resolved to
carry it by open violation of law. He caused his colleague, Octavius,
who had interposed his veto, to be removed from office by a vote of the
citizens--a thing unheard of and, according to the Roman constitution,
impossible--and in this way his bill for the division of the public
land was carried and became a law. It required the appointing of three
commissioners to receive and apportion the public domain.[9] This
collegium of three persons,[10] who were regarded as ordinary and standing
magistrates of the state, and were annually elected by the assembly of the
people, was entrusted with the work of resumption and distribution. The
important and difficult task of legally settling what was domain land and
what was private property was afterward added to these functions. Tiberius
himself, his brother Caius, then at Numantia, and his father-in-law,
Claudius, were nominated, according to the usual custom of intrusting
the execution of a law to its author and his chosen adherents.[11] The
distribution was designed to go on continually and to embrace the whole
class that should be in need of aid. The new features of this agraria lex
of Sempronius, as compared with the Licinio-Sextian, were, first, the
clause in favor of the hereditary possessors; secondly, the payment of
quit-rent, and inalienable tenure proposed for the new allotments; thirdly,
and especially, the permanent executive, the want of which, under the
older law, had been the chief reason why it had remained without lasting
practical application.[12]
The dissatisfaction of the supporters of the law concurred with the
resistance of its opponents in preventing its execution or at least greatly
embarrassing the collegium. The senate refused to grant the customary
outfit to which the commissioners[13] were entitled. They proceeded without
it. Then the landowners denied that they occupied any of the public
land, or else asked such enormous indemnities as to render the recovery
impossible without violence. This roused opposition. The _ager publicus_
had never been surveyed, private boundaries had in many cases been
obliterated, and, except where natural boundaries marked the limit of the
domain land, it was impossible to ascertain what was _ager publicus_ and
what _ager privatus_. To avoid this difficulty the commission adopted the
just but hazardous expediency of throwing the burden of proof upon the
occupier. He was summoned before their tribunal and, unless he could
establish his boundaries or prove that the land in question had never
been a part of the domain land, it was declared _ager publicus_ and
confiscated.[14]
On the other hand the newly made proprietors were contending with one
another, if not with the commissioners. The Italians were, in some cases,
despoiled instead of relieved by the law. The complaints of those turned
out of their estates to make room for the clamorous swarms from the city,
drowned the thanks of such as obtained a portion of the lands. Not even
with the wealth of Attalus had Tiberius bought friends enough to aid him at
this time.[15] The same spirit of lawlessness which he himself had invoked
in the passing of his law, was in turn made use of by his enemies to
crush him. Having been absent from Rome while performing his duties as
commissioner, he now returned as a candidate for re-election to the
tribunate, a thing in itself contrary to law, and in the struggle which
arose over his re-election, was slain a little more than six months after
his appointment[16] to membership in the collegium.
_Uncertainty as to the Details of the Lex Sempronia._ We are very
imperfectly informed upon many points in Tiberius' agrarian law. In the
first place, the question arises, were those persons holding less than
500 jugera at the time of its enactment given their lands as _bona fide_
private property with the privilege of making up the deficiency? If not,
then the law, instead of punishing, would seem to reward violation of its
tenets, and he who had with boldness appropriated the greatest quantity
of domain land would now be an object of envy to his more honest but less
fortunate neighbors.
Secondly, what arrangement was made as to the buildings and improvements
already upon the land? Were these handed over to the new owners without any
payment on their part? This would work great inequality in the value of
allotments made, and yet we cannot see where the poor man was to obtain
the money to pay for these. Then again, what was to become of the numerous
slaves which had hitherto carried on the agriculture now destined to be
performed by small holders? Their masters would have no further use for
them and would consequently swell the lists of freedmen in order to avoid
the expense of feeding them. This law was passed in the midst of the
Sicilian slave war and Tiberius Gracchus would surely not have neglected
to make some provision to meet this exigency. The law as it stands in its
imperfect condition seems to be the work of an ignorant, unprincipled
political charlatan, but we are convinced Tiberius was not that. Moreover,
we know that he had the help of one of Rome's most able lawyers, Publius
Mucius Scaevola, and the advice of his father-in-law, Appius Claudius,
who was something of a statesman. We are therefore convinced that some
conditions which were to meet these obstacles were enacted. We must admit,
however, that it is a little surprising that no fragment of such conditions
has ever reached us in the literature of Rome.
_Results of this Law._ Although Tiberius was dead, yet his law still lived,
and, indeed, received added force from the death of its author. The senate
killed Gracchus but could not annul his law. The party which was favorable
to the distribution of the domain land gained control of affairs. Gaius
Gracchus, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, and Gaius Papirius Carbo, were the chief
persons in carrying the law into effect. Mommsen (vol. III, p. 128) says:
"The work of resuming and distributing the occupied domain land was
prosecuted with zeal and energy; and, in fact, proofs to that effect are
not wanting. As early as 622(i.e. from the Foundation of Rome, =132 B.C.)
the consul of that year, Publius Popillius, the same who presided over the
prosecution of the adherents of Tiberius Gracchus, recorded on a public
monument that he was 'the first who had turned the shepherd out of the
domains and installed farmers in their stead;' and tradition otherwise
affirms that the distribution extended over all Italy, and that in the
formerly existing communities the number of farmers was everywhere
augmented--for it was the design of the Sempronian agrarian law to elevate
the former class, not by the founding of new communities, but by the
strengthening of those already in existence.
"The extent and the comprehensive effect of these distributions are
attested by the numerous arrangements in the Roman art of land-measuring
referable to the Gracchan assignations of land; for instance, the due
placing of boundary stones, so as to obviate future mistakes, appears to
have been first suggested by the Gracchan courts for defining boundaries
and by the distribution of land.
"But the number on the burgess-rolls gives the clearest evidence. The
census, which was published in 623, and actually took place probably in
the beginning of 622, yielded not more than 319,000 burgesses capable of
bearing arms, whereas six years afterwards (629), in place of the previous
falling off (p. 108), the number rises to 395,000, that is 76,000 of an
increase beyond all doubt solely in consequence of what the allotment
commission did for Roman burgesses."
Ihne says, concerning this same commission (vol. IV, p. 409): "The
triumvirs entered upon their duties under the most unfavorable
circumstances.... We may entertain serious doubts whether they or their
immediate successors ever got beyond this first stage of their labors, and
whether they really accomplished the task of setting up any considerable
number of independent freeholders." Ihne further says (vol. IV, p. 408,
n. 1), in answer to the statements made by Mommsen, which we have quoted
above: "There is an obvious fallacy in this argument, for how could the
assignment of allotments to poor citizens increase the number of citizens?
There is nothing to justify the assumption that non-citizens were to share
in the benefit of the land-law, and that by receiving allotments they were
to be advanced to the rank of citizens. If the statements respecting the
census of 131 B.C. and 125 B.C. are to be trusted, the great increase in
the number of citizens must be explained in another way. It is possible ...
that after the revolt of Fregellae (125 B.C.) a portion of the allies were
admitted to the Roman franchise by several plebiscites. We know nothing of
such plebiscites; but it is not unlikely that the Roman senate in 125 B.C.
acted on the principle of making timely concessions to a portion of the
rebels, and thus preventing unanimous action among them. This is what
was done in 90 B.C. during the great Social War. By such an admission of
allies, the increase of citizens between 131 and 125 might possibly be
explained."
If we examine the objections which Ihne raises we shall not find them
so formidable as first appears. Mommsen does not say that the number of
citizens was increased. What he does say is that the number of burgesses
capable of bearing arms was increased (vol. III, p. 128). In 570-184, the
Servian Military Constitution was so modified as to admit to service in the
burgess army, persons possessed of but 4,000 asses ($85). In case of need
all those who were bound to serve in the fleet, _i.e._ those rated between
4,000 and 1,500 asses and all freedmen, together with the free-born rated
between 1,500 asses ($30) and 375 asses ($7.50), were enrolled in the
burgess infantry.[17] It is easy enough to see that the gift on the part of
the government of 30 jugera (24 acres) of land to each poor citizen,
would raise him from the ranks of the proletariate and make him liable to
military service.
This is sufficient to establish Mommsen's thesis;[18] and it is not
necessary to consider the second point, viz., that non-citizens were not to
share in the benefit of the land law nor thereby to be raised to the rank
of citizens, although to us it would be no more difficult to believe this
than that 76,000 allies had been admitted to the Roman franchise "by
several plebiscites" no trace or rumor of which had been preserved.
It can hardly be supposed that the Italian farmers were multiplied at
the same ratio as were the Romans; but the result must have been most
beneficial even to them.
In the accomplishing of this result, respectable interests and existing
rights were no doubt violated. The commission itself was composed of
violent partisans who, being judges unto themselves, did not scruple to
carry out their plans even at the cost of recklessness and tumult. Loud
complaints were made, but usually to no avail. If the domain question was
to be settled at all, the matter could not be carried through without some
such rigor of action. Intelligent Romans wished to see the plan thoroughly
tested. But this acquiescence had a limit. The Italian domain was not all
in the hands of Roman citizens. Allied communities held the usufruct of
large tracts of it by means of decrees of the people or the senate, and
other portions had been taken possession of by Latin burgesses. These in
turn were attacked by the commissioners; but to give fresh offense to these
Latini, who were already overburdened with military service, without share
in the spoils, was a matter of doubtful policy.
The Latini appealed to Scipio in person, and by his influence a bill was
passed by the people which withdrew from the commission its jurisdiction
and remitted to the consuls the decision as to what were private and what
domain lands. This was a mild way of killing the law, and resulted in that.
It had, however, in great measure, fulfilled its object and left little
territory in the hands of the Roman state.
[Footnote 1: App., I,9; Livy, Epit., LVIII, XII: "possessores, qui filios
in potestate haberent, supra legitimum modum ducena quinquagena jugera in
singulos retinerent."]
[Footnote 2: Mommsen states that this privilege was limited to 1000 jugera
in all, and Wordsworth follows him, making the same statement. Lange, Röm.
Alterthümer, III, 9, agrees with Mommsen and cites, App. B.C., I, 9, 11;
Vell., 2, 6; Livy, Ep., 58; Aurelius Victor, 64; Sic. Flacc., p. 136, Lach.
I find no direct proof in the places mentioned of what Lange asserts while
App. (I, 11), says: [Greek: "kai paisi, ois eisi paides ekasto kai touton
ta aemisea."]. Long says there is no proof of any limitation as to number
of sons, while Ihne, Duruy and Nitzsch are agreed in following the
statement of Appian, as I have here done. See Marquardt u. Momm., Röm.
Alter, 106.]
[Footnote 3: App., I, 11.]
[Footnote 4: Momm., III, 114; Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, 9, 1. 9.]
[Footnote 5: App., I, 1. 3.]
[Footnote 6: [Greek: App., I, 9: "Tiberios Grakchos...daemarchon
esemnologaese peri tou Italikou genous hos eupolemotatou te kai sungenus
phtheiromenou de kat oligon es aporian kai oligandrian]. Also App. B.C., I,
13; [Greek: Grakchas de megalauchoumenos epi to nomo ... oia dae ktistaes
ou mias poleos oud henos genous alla panton osa en Italia ethnae es taen
oikian parepempeto."]. Ihne, IV, 385. Lange says (III, 10): "Das Gracchus
die Latiner und Bundesgenosen nicht berücksichtigte, war bei der Gesinnung
der römischen Bürgerschaft gegen die Latiner ganz natürlich." I can not
see how he harmonizes this statement with that of App., [Greek: Italikou
genous] and [Greek: Italia ethnae]. Momm., Röm. Ge., II, 88.]
[Footnote 7: Sallust, Jugertha, XLII.]
[Footnote 8: App., I, XII; Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, X-XII; Julii Flori
Epitoma, II, (Biblioth. Teubner, p. 67): "Sit ubi intercedentem legibus
suis C. Octavium vidit Gracchus, contra fas collegii, juris, potestas, is
injecta manu depulit rostris, adeoque praesenti metu mortis exterruit, ut
abdicare se magistratu cogeretur."]
[Footnote 9: Momm., III, 115.]
[Footnote 10: App., I, 9; Livy, Epit., LVIII, 12; Plut., Tib. Gr., 8-14;
Cic., De Leg. Agr., II, 12, 13; Velleius, 2, 2; Aurelius Vic., De Vir.
Illus., 64.]
[Footnote 11: Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, 13.]
[Footnote 12: Momm., III, 115. See Ihne's just condemnation of this clause;
IV, 387.]
[Footnote 13: Plutarch, Tib. Grac., XIII, ln. 12; Duruy, Hist. Rom., vol.
II, pp. 339-420 of Translation.]
[Footnote 14: Long, I, 183; Ihne, IV, 387; Lange, III, 10-12; Nitzsch,
Die Gracchen, 294 et seq.]
[Footnote 15: Plutarch, Tib. Grac., 14; Florus, II.]
[Footnote 16: Cicero, De Amicitia, 12. "Tiberius Gracchus regnum occupare
conatus est vel regnavit is quidem paucas menses."]
[Footnote 17: Momm., II, p. 417.]
[Footnote 18: Professor Long thinks that the law of Tiberius soon became a
dead letter. Lange (Röm. Alter., III, 26-29), inclines to this view. Duruy
(II, 419-420), and most other modern writers agree with Mommsen.]
SEC. 12.--LEX SEMPRONIA GAIANA.
Gaius Gracchus really enacted no new agrarian law but merely re-established
the power of the commission which had been appointed by his brother ten
years before; which power they had lost by the law of Scipio.[1] Gaius' law
was enacted merely to preserve the principle, and the distribution of land,
if resumed at all, was on a very limited scale. This is made known from
the fact that the burgess-roll showed precisely the same number capable of
bearing arms in 124 and 114. As has already been stated, the domain
land had been exhausted by the commission before losing its power, and,
therefore, Gaius had none to distribute.[2] The land held by the Latini
could only be taken into consideration with the difficult question of the
Roman franchise. But when Gaius proposed the establishment of colonies in
Italy, at Tarentum and Capua, whose territories had been hitherto reserved
as a source of revenue to the treasury,[3] he went a step beyond his
brother and made this also liable to be parcelled out; not, however,
according to the method of Tiberius, who did not contemplate the
establishment of new communities, but according to the colonial system.
There can be little doubt that Gaius designed to aid in permanently
establishing[4] the revolution by means of these new colonies in the most
fertile part of all Italy. His overthrow and death put a stop to the
establishment of the contemplated colonies and left this territory still
tributary to the treasury.
[Footnote 1: Scipio must have caused a plebiscitum to be enacted, for
the repeal of this clause, as an existing law could not be repealed by a
_senatus consultum._ See Ihne, IV, 414, note.]
[Footnote 2: Momm., III, 137.]
[Footnote 3: Cicero, _De Leg. Agr._, II, c. 29-32; Marquardt u. Momm.,
_Röm. Alter._, IV, 106: "ager publicus mit Ausnahme einiger dem Staate
unenbehrlicher Domainen, wozu namentlich das Gebiet von Capua und das
stellatische Feld bei Cales gehörte."]
[Footnote 4: Ihne, IV, 438-479. Plutarch, _Gaius Gracchus_, 13.]