SEC. 13.--LEX THORIA.[1]
According to Appian, during the years which followed the death of Gaius
Gracchus up to the tribunate of Saturninus, that is to say, between the
years 120 and 100, three agrarian laws were proposed and adopted.
1. A law "That the holders of the land which was the matter in dispute
might legally sell[2] it." Appian, who is the only authority for this
period, does not give the date of the law nor the name of the tribune who
proposed it, but Ihne[3] makes the date 118, and Mommsen assigns the law to
Marcus[4] Drusus. This law was a repeal of all the restrictions which the
Gracchi had placed upon assignments of public land. The object of this
clause was to secure the success of their great reforms, and to establish
a number of small proprietors who would cultivate their little farms, and
breed citizens and soldiers. But forced cultivation is impossible, and
sumptuary laws have never yet succeeded in increasing[5] population. Again
it is inconsistent to give land to a man and deprive him of the power of
sale, for this is an essential part of that domain which we call property
in land. If a man wishes to sell, he will always have sufficient reasons
for so doing, and a rich man can afford to pay[6] the highest price,
freedom of exchange thus bringing ultimate good to both parties. It is easy
to comprehend the consequences of this law. It was the commencement of
a reaction entirely aristocratic in its nature.[7] It was skillfully
conducted with the ordinary spirit of the Roman senate, the ruses, mental
reservations, and dissimulations under guise of public interest. The
aristocracy presented to the plebeian farmers, established by the lex
Sempronia, a means of promptly and easily satisfying their passions.
They had never earned their little farms, nor did they appreciate the
independence of the tiller of the soil. Unaccustomed to farm labor,[8] and
the plodding unexciting life of the Roman _agricola_, they made haste to
abandon a toilsome husbandry, the results of which seemed to them slow and
uncertain, and with the pieces of silver which they received as the price
of their lands, returned to Rome to swell the idle and vicious throng[9]
which enjoyed the sweet privilege of an existence sustained without labor.
Thus the nobles re-entered promptly and cheaply into the possession of the
lands of which Tiberius had but a short time before deprived them, and,
by means of a little sacrifice, substantially and legally converted their
possessions into real property, while the plebeians whom Tiberius had
wished to elevate by means of forcing[10] upon them the necessity of labor,
fell back into their accustomed poverty and brutality. But the object for
which the nobles were striving was not yet completely gained. The present
victory was theirs; they now strove to guarantee the future, and so render
impossible dangers similar to those already passed through.
2. A second law was thus enacted: "Spurius Borius, a tribune, proposed a
law to this effect; that there should be no more distribution of the public
land, but it should be left to the possessors who should pay certain
charges (_vectigalia_) for it to the state ([Greek: daemo]) and that the
money arising from these payments should be distributed."[11]
It is easy to comprehend the effect of a law so conceived. On the one hand
it guaranteed to the possessors full property in the public lands which
they held. From this point of view it was aristocratic. But on the other
hand it aimed to unite the interests of the common people with those of the
aristocracy, by placing a tax of one tenth of the produce upon the holders
of these lands,[12] thus reëstablishing the law which had been annulled by
Drusus. This took the place of distributions of land, which had now been
made impossible[13] in Italy. In reality this law was disastrous to the
plebeians as it established a tax[14] for their benefit, a _congiarium_,
and placed a premium upon laziness.
The narration of Appian presents some grave difficulties. In all the
manuscripts of Appian the name of the tribune proposing the second law is
Spurius Borius.[15] Cicero mentions a tribune by the name of Spurius[16]
Thorius and Schweighäuser in his edition of Appian has changed 'Borius' to
'Thorius.' But this does not lessen the difficulty, as the law which Cicero
attributes to Thorius is entirely different from the second law of Appian
which, according to him was introduced by Spurius Borius. Cicero says that
Spurius Thorius "freed the public lands from the vectigal."[17] Appian
says that Spurius Borius guaranteed the _possessions_ in the public lands,
levying a tax on them for the benefit of the people. It is a sheer waste
of time to attempt to harmonize these two statements.[18] Granting that
Spurius Borius and Spurius Thorius are one and the same person, the
statements still remain diametrically opposed according to a simple and
commonly accepted translation of Cicero's words: "Sp. Thorius satis valuit
in populari genere dicendi, is qui agrum publicum vitiosa et inutile lege
vectigali levavit." Mommsen makes Cicero agree with Appian by changing
"vectigali" into the instrument, and rendering[l9] "relieved the public
land from a vicious and useless law by imposing a vectigal." No other
writer agrees with Mommsen in making such a translation.
3. The third law is mentioned by Appian alone who says: "Now when the law
of Gracchus had once been evaded by these tricks, an excellent law and most
useful to the state if it could have been executed, another tribune not
long after [Greek: oupolu husteron] abolished even the vectigalia."[20]
This is evidently the same law which Cicero mentions as that of Spurius
Thorius and as he also mentions him in another place (_De Or_., II, 70,
284), we may possibly accept him as the author.
There are still extant some fragments of a bronze tablet which contains
upon its smooth surface the Lex Repetundarum and has cut upon its rough[21]
back an agrarian law. These fragments were discovered in the 16th century
among the collections in the Museum of Cardinal[22] Bembo at Padua.
Sigonius attempted the reconstruction of this law and after him Haubold and
Klentze, but Rudorff has completed the reconstruction as far as possible
and made the law the subject of an interesting essay.[23] Mommsen has a
commentary in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum[24] upon this law. From
all these sources the date of this law has been established almost beyond
doubt as 111. Sigonius assigned it to Spurius Thorius, and, as the name is
immaterial and[25] his arguments moreover for this title are not easily set
aside, we can do no better than adopt it.
_Argument of the Lex Thoria._[26]
The law evidently consists of three parts, although the rubricae are
absent.
I. De agro publico p. R. in Italia (1-43).
II. De agro publico p. R. in Africa (44--95).
III. De agro publico p. R. qui Corinthorum fuit (96-105).
I. On the Ager Publicus in Italy.
This part may be divided roughly into three sections: (1) Lines 1-24,
defining _ager privatus_; (2) 24-32, defining _ager publicus_; (3) 33-43,
on disputed cases.
It thus embraces the first forty-three lines of the law, and is concerned
with the public land of Italy, from the Rubicon southwards. It commences
by referring to the condition of this land in the year 133, when Tiberius
Gracchus was tribune. The law does not affect to touch any thing which
had been enacted concerning this land prior to 133. It either confirms or
alters what had been done in 133, and since that time. All the public land
which was exempted from the operation of the Sempronian laws, _i.e._, _Ager
Campanus_ and _Ager Stellatis_, was also excluded from the operation of the
_lex Thoria_.
(1) The first ten lines of the law relate to that part of the ager publicus
which was occupied before the time of the Gracchi, if the amount of such
land did not exceed the maximum fixed by the Sempronian laws;
(2) Also, to the assignments made by lot (_sortito_) to Roman citizens
by the commissioners since the enactment of the Sempronian laws, if such
assignments were not made out of land which had been guaranteed to the old
possessors;
(3) Also, to all lands taken from an old possessor, but on his complaint
restored to him by the commissioners;
(4) Also, to all houses and lands, in Rome or in other parts of Italy,
which the commissioners had granted without lot, so as such grants did not
interfere with the guaranteed title of older possessors;
(5) Also, to all the public land which Gaius Sempronius, or the
commissioners, in carrying out his law, had used in the establishment of
colonies or given to settlers, whether Roman citizens, Latini, or Italian
Socii, or which they had caused to be entered on the "_formae_" or
"_tabulae_."
All the lands comprised in the above are declared in lines seven and eight
to be private property, in these words: "Ager locus omnis quei supra
scriptus est, extra eum agrum locum, quei ager locus ex lege plebeivescito,
quod C. Sempronius Ti. f. tr. pl. rogavit, exsceptum cavitumve est nei
divideretur ... privatus esto."
Lines 8-10 declare that the censors shall, from time to time, enter this
land upon their books like any other private property; and it is further
declared that nothing shall be said or done in the senate to disturb the
peaceful enjoyment of this land by those persons possessing it.
Of lines 11-13 (ch. II) nothing definite can be said, because of the few
words which have been preserved.[27] Rudorff explains them as referring to
land granted to _viasii vicani_ (dwellers in villages along the roads), by
the Sempronian commissioners; such lands to remain in their possession, but
to be theoretically _ager publicus._
Lines 13-14 refer to lands occupied since 133 _agri colendi causa_. They
allow to every Roman citizen the privilege of occupying, for the purpose of
cultivation, thirty jugera of public land; they further declare that he
who shall possess or have not more than thirty jugera of such land, shall
possess and have it as private property,[28] with the provision that
land so occupied shall be no part of the public land excepted from
appropriation, and further, that such occupation shall not interfere with
the guaranteed lands of a previous possessor.
Lines 14-15 relate to holders of pasture land (_ager compascuus_). This
_ager compascuus_ was land which had been left undivided, and had not
become the private property of any individual, but was the common property
of the owners of the adjacent lands. These persons had the right to pasture
stock upon this land by paying pasture dues (_scriptura_ or _vectigal_)
to the state. The _Thoria lex_ freed these lands from the _vectigal_ or
_scriptura_, and granted free pasturage to each man for ten head of
large beasts--cattle, asses, and horses--and fifty head of smaller
animals--sheep, goats, and swine. This common pasture must be carefully
distinguished from the communal property which was granted to the settlers
in a Colonia and called "_compascua publica_" with the additional title[29]
of the colony, as "_Julienses_."
These rights of common resemble, in some respects, the English common
of pasture as described by Bracton.[30] By English customary law, every
freeholder holding land within a manor, had the right of common of
pasturage on the lord's wastes as an incident to his land.
Lines 15-16. The possession of land, granted by the commissioners in a
colony since 133, to be confirmed before the Ides of March next.
Lines 16-17. The same rule applied to lands granted otherwise by the same
commissioners.
Line 18. Such occupants if forcibly ejected to be restored.
Lines 19-20. Land assigned by the Sempronian commission, in compensation
for land in a colony which had been made public, to become private.
Lines 23-24. Confirmation of the title or restitution of such land to be
made before the Ides of March next.
Lines 24-25. Land besides this which remains public is not to be occupied,
but to be left free to the public for grazing. A fine for occupation is
imposed. The law allowed all persons to feed their beasts great and small
on this public pasture, up to the number mentioned in lines 14-15 as the
limit to be pastured on the _ager campascuus_, free of all tax. This,
according to Rudorff, was done for the benefit of the small holders. Those
who sent more than this number of animals to the public pastures must pay a
_scriptura_, for each head.
Line 26. While the cattle or sheep were driven along the '_calles_,' or
beast-tracks, and along the public roads to the pasture grounds, no charge
was made for what they consumed along the road.
Line 27. Land given in compensation out of public land, to be _privatus
utei quoi optuma lege_.
Line 27. Land taken in this way from private ownership to be _publicus_, as
in 133.
Lines 27-28. Land given in compensation for _ager patritus_ to be itself
_patritus_.
Line 28. Public roads to remain as before.
Line 29. Whatever Latins and _peregrini_ might do in 112, and whatever is
not forbidden citizens to do by this law, they may do henceforward.
Lines 29-30. Trial of a Latin to be the same as for a Roman citizen.
Lines 31-32. Territory (1) of borough towns or colonies (2), in
trientabulis, to be, as before, public.
Lines 33-34. Cases of dispute about land made private between 133 and 111,
or by this law, to be judged by the consul or praetor before next Ides of
March.
Lines 35-36. Cases of dispute after this date to be tried by consuls,
praetors, or censors.
Lines 36-39. Judgment on money owing to publicani to be given by consuls,
proconsuls, praetors or propraetors.
Line 40. No one to be prejudiced by refusing to swear to laws contrary to
this law.
Lines 41-42. No one to be prejudiced by refusing to obey laws contrary to
this law.
Lines 43-44. On the colony of Sipontum (?).
Thus we see that the _lex Thoria_ had two main objects in view: (1) The
guaranteeing to possessors full property in the land which they occupied.
(2) The freeing from _vectigal_ or _scriptura_ the property of every one.
In this way was the reaction of the aristocracy completed. It left nothing
of the Sempronian law. Appian[31] has fully comprehended all this, and, in
his enumeration of the three laws, connection between which he indicates,
we see clearly the entire revolutionary system, conducted, we must admit,
with a rare address and a perfidy which rendered the effect certain. The
aristocracy did not rest. As soon as they had gained the people by their
new bait of money and food, soothed them by their apparent generosity, and
familiarized them with the idea that the _possessions_ of the nobles were
not only legally acquired but inviolable, then they raised the mask, and
by a bold step swept away the _vectigal_,[32] thus leaving their property
free. The enactment of this law virtually closed the long struggle between
patrician and plebeian over the public lands of Rome, and left them as full
property in the hands of the rich nobility. The results could hardly have
been otherwise. Sumptuary laws, false economic principles, had closed all
channels[33] of trade and manufacture to the nobility, while conquest had
filled their hands with gold and placed at their disposal vast numbers[34]
of slaves. There was but one channel open for the investment of this
gold,--the agrarian.[35] Farming and cattle-raising were the only
occupations in which slaves could be used with advantage and so, as a
natural result of Roman economics, the plebeian, with little or no money
and subject to the military call, was compelled to enter into a one-sided
contest with capital and slave labor. So long as these conditions existed
so long would all the laws of the world fail to save him from abject
poverty and its attendant evils.
[Footnote 1: Rudorff, _Ackergesetz des Spurius Thorius_, Zeitschrift für
geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, Band X, s. 1-158. Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum, vol. V, pp. 75-86. Wordsworth, _Specimens and Fragments of Early
Latin_, 440-459.]
[Footnote 2: Appian, _Bell. Civ._, I, c. 27.]
[Footnote 3: Ihne, _Roman History_, V, 9.]
[Footnote 4: Momm., _Rom. Hist._, III, 165.]
[Footnote 5: Long, _Decline of the Rom. Rep._, I, 352. See Lange, _Röm.
Alter._, III, 48.]
[Footnote 6: Long, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 7: Momm., III, 161; Ihne, V, 10.]
[Footnote 8: Long, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 9: Lange, III, 48-49; Marquardt u. Momm., IV, 108.]
[Footnote 10: Long, _loc. cit._ Momm., III, 167-168; Ihne, V, 8-10.]
[Footnote 11: Appian, I, c. 27.]
[Footnote 12: Long, I, 353.]
[Footnote 13: Long, I, 354.]
[Footnote 14: Ihne, V, 10-11.]
[Footnote 15: Long, I, 353; Wordsworth, 440; Momm., III, 165, note; Ihne,
V, 9; Lange, III, 48; Appian, I, c. 27.]
[Footnote 16: Cicero, _Brut._, 36.]
[Footnote 17: Cicero, _De Orat._, II, 70.]
[Footnote 18: Marquardt u. Momm., _Röm. Alter._, IV, 108, n. 4; Wordsworth,
441.]
[Footnote 19: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. I, p. 74.]
[Footnote 20: Appian, I, c. 27.]
[Footnote 21: Long, I, 355; Wordsworth, 440.]
[Footnote 22: Long, I, 355; Wordsworth, 440; See Rudorff, Ack. des Sp.
Thor.]
[Footnote 23: Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, Band X, s.
1-194.]
[Footnote 24: C.I.L., I, pp. 75-86.]
[Footnote 25: Long, I, 356.]
[Footnote 26: Wordsworth, 447. See the text of this law in C.I.L., vol. I,
pp. 79-80.]
[Footnote 27: Long, I, 359.]
[Footnote 28: "Quom quis ceivis Romanus agri colendi causa in eum agrum
agri jugera non amplius xxx possidebit habebitue, is ager privatus esto."]
[Footnote 29: Long, _loc. cit._; Wordsworth, 446.]
[Footnote 30: Digby, _History of the Law of Real Property in England_, p.
157.]
[Footnote 31: Long, I, 357.]
[Footnote 32: Appian, I, c. 27.]
[Footnote 33: Long, _loc. cit._; Ihne, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 34: Ihne, _loc. cit._; Long, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 35: Momm., _loc. cit._]
SEC. 14.--AGRARIAN MOVEMENTS BETWEEN 111 AND 86.
In the year following the enactment of the _lex Thoria_, or, by some other
authorities, in 105, an agrarian law was proposed by a tribune named Marcus
Philippus. Cicero is the only writer who mentions it, and he has given us
no information concerning its tendency and dispositions. We only know
from him that it was rejected.[1] Probably the whole thing was merely a
political ruse in order to gain an election or to be handsomely bought off
by the nobility. It, however, presents one point of interest to us. The
introduction of the bill was preceded by a speech, in which the tribune,
in justifying his undertaking, affirmed that there were not two thousand
citizens who had wealth. Cicero has made no attempt to refute this, and
must, therefore, have judged it true. It reveals the fact that Rome was in
a deplorable condition.
In chronological order the first agrarian law after the vain attempt of
Philippus was that of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus. In the year 100, he
brought forward a bill for the distribution of land in Africa[2] to the
soldiers of Marius. Each soldier was to receive one hundred jugera of land.
No distinction was to be made between Roman and Latin. This bill received
the sanction of the assembly and became a law, but force was the chief
instrumentality in bringing this about. This law, so far as can be
ascertained, was never enforced, so that when the same man, three years
later, brought forward another agrarian bill, he took the precaution to add
a clause binding every senator, under heavy penalty, to confirm the law by
the most solemn oath.[3] The first law was enacted in order to provide the
soldiers of Marius with suitable farms when they returned from the campaign
in Numidia. The author doubtless acted with the aid and hearty coöperation
of Marius. When Saturninus brought forward his second bill, Marius[4] had
returned from the north as the hero of Aquae Sextiae and was present to
help. The nobility as one man opposed the scheme; the town-people were the
clients of the rich. If Marius[5] and Saturninus were to succeed, it must
be by the aid of the country burgess and the soldier. With the legions that
fought at Vercellae drawn up in the town, amid riot and bloodshed, the
assembly passed the bill. The senate, together with Marius himself, for a
time demurred from taking the oath. Finally,[6] at the instigation of "the
man from the ranks," who had come to the conclusion that it was best to
subscribe, all save one, Metellus, took the oath. The law enacted that
assignments of land in the country of the Gauls, in Sicily, Achaia, and
Macedonia, should be made; that colonies should be established, and
that Marius should be the head of the commission entrusted with the
establishment of all these settlements.[7] These colonies were to consist
of Roman citizens; and, in order that Latini,[8] their companions in arms,
might participate in the grants, Marius was invested with power to bestow
the franchise upon a certain number of these. But no one of these colonies
was ever founded. The only colony of the year 100 was Eporedia[9] (Ivrea),
in the northwestern Alps, and it is not likely that this was established in
accordance with the provisions of the enactment. The law was to take effect
in 99, and a change of party took place before that time which sent Marius
into practical banishment and rewarded his partisan, Saturninus, with
death. The optimates who were now in office paid no attention to the law,
and the senators forgot their oath. Another injury is added to the many
which the Latini had suffered.
In the year 99, _i.e._, in the year following the death of Saturninus, an
agrarian law was proposed by the tribune Titius, but we know nothing of its
conditions. Cicero is the only writer who mentions it and even his text
is doubtful.[10] According to one of his statements Titius was banished
because he had preserved a portrait of Saturninus, and the knights deemed
him for this reason a seditious citizen. Valerius Maximus, who without
doubt borrowed his facts from Cicero, states that "Titius had rendered
himself dear to the people by having[11] brought forward an agrarian law."
Cicero mentions in another place, the _lex Titia_[12] upon the same page
as the _lex Saturnina_ and implies that it had been enacted. If so it was
disregarded and thus rendered void.
In 91 an agrarian law was proposed by Livius Drusus, the son of the
adversary of Gaius Gracchus, and, with his new judiciary, the measure was
carried and became a law.[13] The Italians were embraced in this law and
were to have equal rights with Roman citizens, but Drusus died before he
had time to carry his law into execution, and his law died with him.
[Footnote 1: Cic., _De Off._, II, 21.]
[Footnote 2: Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, tribunus plebis seditiosus ut
gratiam Marianorum militum pararet, legem tulit ut veteranis centena agri
jugera in Africa dividerentur.... Siciliam, Achaiam, Macedoniam novis
colonis destinavit; et aurum, dolo an scelere, Caepionis partum, ad
emtionem agrorum convertit. Aurel. Victor. De Vir. Illus., 73.]
[Footnote 3: App., I, 29; Plutarch, _Marius_, 29.]
[Footnote 4: Plutarch, _Marius_, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 5: App., _Bell. Civ._, I, 30-33.]
[Footnote 6: App., _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 7: Aurelius Victor, 73.]
[Footnote 8: Cicero, _De Orat._, II, c. 7, I; _pro Balbo_, XIV; _pro
Rabirio_, XI.]
[Footnote 9: Long, I.]
[Footnote 10: Cicero, _Pro Rabirio_, 9.]
[Footnote 11: Val. Max., VIII, 1, §2: "Sext. Titius... agraria lege lata
gratiosus apud populum."]
[Footnote 12: _De Legibus_, II, 6. _De Orat._, II, 11.]
[Footnote 13: Ihne, V, 176-186; App., I, 35; Val. Max., IX, 5, 2: Cicero,
_De Orat._, III, 1; Livy, _Epit._, 71.]
SEC. 15.--EFFECT OF THE SULLAN REVOLUTION.
As soon as Sulla found himself established, he caused a bill to pass the
Comitia Centuriata by means of which he was empowered to inflict punishment
upon certain Italian communities. For the accomplishment of this purpose
commissioners were appointed to coöperate with the garrisons established
throughout all Italy. The less guilty were required to pay fines, pull down
their walls, and raze their citadels.[1] Those that had been guilty of
continued opposition, as Samnium, Lucania, and Etruria, had their territory
in whole or in part confiscated, their municipal rights cancelled,
immunities taken from them, which had been granted by old treaties, and the
Roman franchise,[2] which they had been granted by the Cinnan government,
annulled. Such persons received, instead, the lowest Latin rights which did
not even imply membership in any community and rendered them destitute of
civic constitution and the right of making a testament.[3] This latter
treatment applied only to those whose land was confiscated. Thus Sulla
vindicated the majesty of the Republic and at the time avoided furnishing
his enemies with a nucleus in Italian communities. In Campania, the
democratic colony established at Capua by Cinna[4] was done away with and
the domain given back to the state, thus becoming _ager publicus_. The
whole territory of Praeneste and Norba in Latium, and Spoletium in Umbria
was confiscated. The town of Sulmo in Pelignium was razed. But more direful
than all this was the punishment which fell upon Etruria[5] and Samnium.
These people had marched upon Rome and, with the avowed determination of
exterminating the Roman people, had engaged in battle at the Colline gate.
They were utterly destroyed and their country left desolate. The territory
of Samnium was not even opened up for settlement, but left as a lair for
wild beasts. Henceforth from the Rubicon to the Straits of Sicily there
were to be none but Romans; the laws and the language of the whole
peninsula were to be the laws[6] and the language of Rome.
To accomplish such an object as this, it was not enough to destroy and make
desolate, it became necessary to repopulate the waste places and rebuild
that which had been torn down. Roman citizens had to be sent as colonists
into the desolate regions. Sulla, accordingly, undertook to carry out his
plans of colonization, the grandest and most comprehensive which Rome
had ever seen, and which indeed have had no parallel in history till
the settlement of the north of Ireland by Cromwell and William III. The
arrangements as to the property of the Italian soil placed at the disposal
of Sulla[7] all the Roman domain lands which had been placed in usufruct to
the allied communities, and which now reverted to the Roman government.
It also placed at his disposal all the confiscated territories of the
communities incurring punishment. Upon these territories he established
military colonies, and thus obtained a three-fold result.[8] He remunerated
his soldiers for the faithful service rendered him in long years of toil
and danger. He repeopled the regions desolated by war (except Samnium). He
provided a military protection for himself and the new constitution which
he established.
Most of his new settlements were directed to Etruria, Faesulae and Arretium
being among the number; others, to Latium[9] and Campania, where Praeneste
and Pompeii became Sullan colonies. A great part of these colonies were,
after the Gracchan manner, merely grafted upon town-communities already
existing. The comprehensiveness of these settlements may be seen in this
fact that 20,000 allotments were[10] made in different parts of Italy.
Notwithstanding this vast disposal of territory, Sulla gave lands to the
temple of Diana at Mt. Tifata, while the territory of Volaterrae and
Arretium remained undisturbed. He also revived the old plan of occupation
which had been legally forbidden in the year 118. Many of Sulla's intimate
friends availed themselves of this method of becoming masters of large
estates.
[Footnote 1: App., _Bell Civ._, I, 94-100; Livy, _Epit._, 89. Plutarch,
_Life of Sulla._]
[Footnote 2: Ihne, V, 391.]
[Footnote 3: Momm., III, 428, note. See article on Sulla, in Brittannica.]
[Footnote 4: Momm., III, 401.]
[Footnote 5: Momm., III, 429; Ihne, V, 392; Long.]
[Footnote 6: Momm., III, 429.]
[Footnote 7: Momm., _loc. cit._; Ihne, V, 391-395.]
[Footnote 8: Momm., III, 429.]
[Footnote 9: Momm., III, 430; Marquardt u. Momm., _Röm. Alter._, IV, 111,
totam Italiam suis praesidiis obsidere atque ocupare; Cicero, _De Leg.
Agr._, 2, 28, 75.]
[Footnote 10: App., I, 100; Cicero, _De Legibus Agrariis_, II, 28, 78;
Ihne, V, 394; Marquardt u. Momm., IV, 111; Zumpt, _Comm. Epigr._, 242-246;
Cicero, _Ad Att._, I, 19, 4: "Volaterranos et Arretinos, quorum agrum Sulla
publicarat."]
SEC. 16.--AGRARIAN MOVEMENTS BETWEEN 86 AND 59.
The first agrarian movement after the Sullan Revolution was that
inaugurated by the tribune Rullus. This has become the most famous of all
the agrarian laws because of the speeches made against it by the great
adversary of Rullus, Cicero, who succeeded in defeating the measure by
reason of his brilliant rhetoric. Plutarch[1] has thus analyzed this
proposition. "The tribunes of the people proposed dangerous innovations;
they demanded the establishment of ten magistrates with absolute power,
who, while disposing, as masters, of Italy, Syria, and the new conquests of
Pompey, should have the right to sell the public lands; to prosecute those
whom they wished; to banish; to establish colonies; to draw upon the public
treasury for whatever money they had need; to levy and maintain what troops
they deemed necessary. The concession of so widely extended power gained
for the support of the law the most powerful men in Rome. The colleague of
Cicero, Antonius, was one of the first to favor it, in the hope of being
one of the decemvirs. Cicero opposed the new law in the senate and his
eloquence so completely overpowered even the tribunes that they had not
one word to reply. But they returned to the charge and having gained the
support of the people, they brought the matter before the tribes. Cicero
was in no way alarmed; he left the senate, appeared on the rostrum before
the people and spoke with so great force that he not only caused the law
to be rejected but took from the tribunes all hope of being successful in
similar enterprises."
In 61 we find Cicero advocating a bill similar in nature to the one he had
so brilliantly combatted in 64. In the last instance, however, the law was
proposed by Pompey, and in favor of Pompey's soldiers and that made all
difference to a man who ever curried favor with the great. Flavius, who
proposed this law, was but the creature of Pompey. Cicero has made known
to us, in one of his letters to Atticus, the conditions of the law which
Flavius proposed and the modifications which he himself wished to apply to
it. Flavius proposed to distribute lands both to the soldiers of Pompey and
the people; to establish colonies; to use for the purchase of the lands for
colonization, the subsidies which should accrue in five years, from the
recently conquered territories.[2] The senate rejected this law entirely,
in the same spirit of opposition which it had shown to all agrarian laws,
probably thinking that Pompey would thereby obtain too great an increase of
power.[3] This was the last attempt at agrarian legislation until the year
59, when Julius Caesar enacted his famous law.
[Footnote 1: Plutarch, _Cicero_, 16-17.]
[Footnote 2: Cicero, _Ad. Att._, I, 19.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid.: "Huic toti rationi agrariae senatus adversabatur,
suspicans Pompeio novam quamdam potentiam quaeri."]
SEC. 17.--LEX JULIA AGRARIA.
During the first consulship of Caius Julius Cæsar, he brought forward an
agrarian[1] bill at the instigation of his confederates. The main object of
this bill was to furnish land to the Asiatic army[2] of Pompey, In fine,
this bill was little more than a renewal of a bill presented by Pompey the
previous year (58), but rejected. Appian gives the following account of
this bill: "As soon as Cæsar and Bibulus[3] (his colleague) entered on the
consulship, they began to quarrel and to make preparation to support their
parties by force. But Cæsar who possessed great powers of dissimulation,
addressed Bibulus in the senate and urged him to unanimity on the ground
that their disputes would damage the public interests. Having in this way
obtained credit for peaceable intentions, he threw Bibulus off his guard,
who had no suspicion of what was going on, while Cæsar, meanwhile, was
marshalling a strong force, and introducing into the senate laws for
favoring the poor, under which he proposed to distribute land among them
and the best land in Italy, that about[4] Capua which at the present time
was let on public account.[5] He proposed to distribute this land among
heads of families who had three children, by which measure he could gain
the good will of a large multitude, for the number of those who had three
children was 20,000. This proposal met with opposition from many of the
senators, and Cæsar, pretending to be much vexed at their unfair behavior,
left the house and never called the senate together again during the
remainder of his consulship, but addressed the people from the rostra. He,
in the presence of the assembly, asked the opinion of Pompeius and Crassus,
both of them approving, and the people came to vote on them (the bills),
with concealed daggers. Now as the senate[6] was not convened, for one
consul could not summon the senate without the consent of the other consul,
the senators used to meet at the house of Bibulus, but they could make no
real opposition to Cæsar's power.... Now Cæsar secured the enactment of the
laws, and bound the people by an oath to the perpetual observance of them,
and he required the same oath from the senate. As many of the senators
opposed him, and among them Cato, Cæsar proposed death as a penalty for not
taking the oath and the assembly ratified this proposal. Upon this all took
the oath immediately because of fear, and the tribunes also took it, for
there was no longer any use in making opposition after the proposal was
ratified."
This agrarian law did not affect the existing rights of property and
heritable possession. It destined for distribution only the Italian domain
land, that is to say, merely the territory of Capua, as this was all that
belonged to the state.[7] If this was not enough to satisfy the demand,
other Italian lands were to be bought out of the revenue from the eastern
provinces at the taxable value rated in the censorial rolls. The number
of persons settled on the _Campanus ager_ is said[8] to have been 20,000
citizens who had each three children or more. The land was not distributed
by lot, but at the pleasure of the commissioners, each one receiving some
30 jugera.[9] If 20,000 heads of families with their wives and three
children in each family were settled in Campania, the whole number of
settlers would be 100,000. This great number could scarcely leave Rome at
one time, and we find that as late as 51 the land was not all assigned.[10]
While the tenor of the law does not imply that it was the intention to
reward military service with grants of land, yet we may be sure that the
veterans of Pompey were not forgotten.[11] There are no extant authorities
which speak of the settlement of the Campanian land that say any thing
about the soldiers settled there, unless it be Cicero. He speaks of the
Campanian territory being taken out of the class that contributed a revenue
to the state in order that it might be given to soldiers,[12] and he
appears to refer to this time (59). Mommsen says that "the old soldiers as
well as the temporary lessees to be ejected were simply recommended to the
special consideration of the land distributors."[13] These latter were a
commission of twenty appointed by the state. Cæsar, at his own request,
was excused from serving, but Pompey and Crassus were the chief ones, thus
furnishing sufficient reason for supposing that the soldier was provided
for. The passage of this bill amounted in substance to the reëstablishment
of the democratic colony founded by Marius and Cinna and afterwards
abolished by Sulla.[14] Capua now became a Roman colony after having had no
municipal constitution for one hundred and fifty-two years, when the city
with all its dependencies was made a prefecture administered by a prefect
of Rome. The revenues from this district were doubtless no longer
needed, as those from Pontus and Syria[15] supplied all the needs of the
government, but it is difficult to see what benefit could be reaped
from the ejection of the thrifty farmers who, as tenants of the state,
cultivated this territory and paid their rents regularly into the state
coffers. Wherever the new settlers were brought in, the old cultivators
were turned out. No ancient writer says anything about the condition of
these people. Cicero, in his second speech upon the land bill of Rullus,
when speaking of the consequences that would follow its enactment, declared
that if the Campanian cultivators were ejected they would have no place
to go, and he truly says that such a measure would not be a settlement of
plebeians upon the land, but an ejection and expulsion of them from it.[16]
Did it pay to send out a swarm of 100,000 idle paupers[17] who, for two
generations, had been fed at the public charge from the corn-bins of Rome,
simply in order that a like number of honest peasants, who had been not
only self-supporting but had paid a large part of the Roman revenue, should
be compelled to sacrifice their goods in a glutted market and become
debauched and idle?
[Footnote 1: Livy, _Epit._, 103.]
[Footnote 2: Momm., IV, 244.]
[Footnote 3: App., _Bell. Civ._, II, c. 10.]
[Footnote 4: Compare Dio Cassius, Bk., XXXVIII, c. 1: "[Greek: Taen de
choran taen de koinaen hapasan plaen taes Kampanidos eneme, tautaen gar en
to daemosio ezaireton dia taen aretaen synebouleusen einai.]"]
[Footnote 5: Compare Suetonius' _Cæsar_, c. 20: "Campum Stellatem,
majoribus consecratum, agrumque Campanum, ad subsidea reipublicae (sic)
vectigalem relictum."]
[Footnote 6: App., II, c. 11.]
[Footnote 7: App., II, c. 20, and Suetonius, _Julius Caesar_, c. 20.]
[Footnote 8: Suetonius, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 9: Lange, _Röm. Alter._, III, 273.]
[Footnote 10: Cicero, _ad. Att._, VIII, 4.]
[Footnote 11: Dion Cassius, 45, c. 12; Cicero, _ad Att._, X, 8.]
[Footnote 12: Cicero, _Phil._, II, 39: "agrum Campanum, qui cum de
vectigalibus eximebatur, ut militibus daretur." Marquardt u. Momm., _Röm.
Alter._, IV, 114.]
[Footnote 13: Momm., IV. 244.]
[Footnote 14: Momm., III, 392, 428.]
[Footnote 15: Momm., III, 392, 428.]
SEC. 18.--DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AFTER THE CIVIL WAR BETWEEN CÆSAR AND
POMPEY.
After Pompey had been vanquished at Pharsalia, and the republicans in
Africa, Cæsar proceeded to distribute lands to his soldiers in accordance
with his promise to give them lands, "not by taking them from their
proprietors as Sulla did; not by mixing colonists with citizens despoiled
of their goods and thus breeding perpetual strife,--but by dividing
both public land and his own private property,[1] and, if this were not
sufficient, by buying what was needed." Appian says that Caesar did not
succeed in carrying out these promises in full, but that veterans were in
some cases settled upon lands legally belonging to others.[2] However,
his soldiers were not huddled together like those of Sulla, in military
colonies of their own, but when they settled in Italy they were
scattered[3] as much as possible throughout the entire peninsula in order
to make them more easily amenable to the laws.[4] In Campania, where Cæsar
had lands at his disposal, the soldiers were settled in colonies, and so,
close together. According to a letter of Cicero to Paetus, among the lands
distributed were those of Veii and Capena. Historians have estimated
that there were 100,000 soldiers who received lands in Italy by this
distribution.
[Footnote 1: App., 94.]
[Footnote 2: App., II, 120.]
[Footnote 3: Long; Momm.]
[Footnote 4: Suetonius, _Julius Cæsar_, 38.]
SEC. 19.--DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE DEATH OF CÆSAR TO THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS.
The death of Cæsar in no way stopped the assignment of lands, but rather
rendered all possession of land in Italy unsafe. A few weeks after
his death two new laws were promulgated, one by the tribune, Lucius
Antonius,[1] a _lex agraria_, and the other the _lex de colonis in agros
deducendis_ by the consul Marcus Antonius. The first was enacted on the 5th
of June,[2] and ordered that all the _ager publicus_ still at the disposal
of the state, including the Pomptine marshes which Cæsar had at one time
planned to drain, but had not, be divided among the veterans and citizens.
It was abrogated by a _senatus consultum_ of the 4th of January, 43,[3]
but was nevertheless carried into execution almost immediately with great
relentlessness towards the enemies[4] of Antonius. The second, the _Lex
Antonia_, perished in April of 44, and had as a result the establishment
of a colony near Casilinum,[5] which Cæsar had already colonized; the
remainder of the domain lands, the _ager Campanus_ and _ager Leontinus_,
was converted into a reward for the supporters of Antonius.[6] This was
also set aside by the new law of the consul C. Vibius Pansa, in February,
43.[7]
_Second Triumvirate._ When Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius were reconciled,
thus forming the second triumvirate, the treaty sanctioning this new state
of affairs stipulated, in favor of the soldiers, a new distribution of
lands, _i.e._, a new agrarian law; Appian says:--"In order to increase the
zeal of the army, the triumvirs promised to the soldiers, independent[8]
of other results of victory and a gratuity of colonies, 18 Italian towns,
important by means of their wealth and the richness of their lands.
These were divided among the soldiers with their lands and buildings, as
conquered towns. Among the number were Capua, Rhegium, Venusia, Beneventum,
Nuceria and Vibo. Thus the most beautiful part of Italy became the prey of
the soldiers."
Dion Cassius, Suetonius and Velleius Paterculus all mention these
assignments. After the battle of Philippi and the defeat and death of
Brutus and Cassius, 170,000 men were provided for, in accordance with these
promises, out of the goods of the proscribed and the lands confiscated to
the state. The lands of the towns mentioned in Appian were taken under the
form of a forced sale, but the purchase money was never paid owing to the
bankrupt condition of the treasury.
If we examine into the nature of these agrarian laws since the death of
Julius Caesar, we shall find that they differ in all respects from previous
enactments:
1. They were executed at the expense not only of public domains but also of
private property.
2. They were the work of one man and not of the entire people.
3. The name of the people was never mentioned in these laws; they were
enacted wholly for the profit of the soldiery. Before the distributions
made by the triumvirate, the public lands had been absorbed, or at least
the fragments remaining were in no way sufficient to recompense the service
of the veterans.
Upon the establishment of the empire, the public lands became a vast
manorial estate whose over-lord was the emperor himself.
[Footnote 1: L. Langii, Commentationis de Legibus Antoniis a Cicerone
Phil., V, 4, 10; Commemoratis particula prior et posterior; Lipsiae,
1882; Lange, _Röm. Alter._, III, 499, 503, 526; Marquardt u. Momm., _Röm.
Alter._, IV, 116.]
[Footnote 2: Lange, _Comm._, II, 14.]
[Footnote 3: Cicero, _Phil._, VI, 5, 14; XI, 6, 13.]
[Footnote 4: _Phil._, V, 7, 20.]
[Footnote 5: Langii, _Comm._, II, 14.]
[Footnote 6: Cic., _Phil._, II, 17, 43; II, 39, 101; III, 9, 22; VIII, 8,
26; Dio Cass., 45, 30; 46, S.]
[Footnote 7: Cic., _Phil._, V, 4, 10; V, 19, 53; X, 8, 17; VIII, 15, 31.]
[Footnote 8: [Greek: "Dosesi ton Italikon poleon oktokaideka ... osper
autois anti taes polemias dorilaeptoi genomenai.... Outo men ta kallista
taes Italias to strato diegrephon."] App., IV, 3.]
FINIS.