certainly by the citizens of allied and any limit to the amount which an indifriendly states, on the payment of a cer-vidual might occupy. In course of time tain rent, which was one-tenth of the produce of arable land and one-fifth of the produce of land planted with the vine, the fig, the olive, and of other trees the produce of which was valuable, as the pine. It does not appear that this occupation was originally regulated by any rules: it is stated that public notice was given that the lands might be occupied on such terms as above mentioned. Nor was the occupation probably limited to one class: either the patricians or the plebeians, either of these two portions of the Roman community, might occupy the lands. The enjoyment of the public land by the plebes is at least mentioned after the date of the Licinian laws. Such an arrangement would certainly be favourable to agriculture. The state would have found it difficult to get purchasers for all its acquisitions; and it would not have been politic to have made a free gift of all those conquered lands which, under proper management, would furnish a revenue to the state. Those who had capital, great or small, could get the use of land without buying it, on the condition of paying a moderate rent, which depended on the produce. The rent may not always have been paid in kind, but still the amount of the rent would be equivalent to a portion of the produce. The state, as already observed, was the owner of the land: the occupier, who was legally entitled the Possessor, had only the use (usus). This is the account of Appian (Civil Wars, i. 7, &c.). The account of Plutarch (Tiberius Gracchus, 8) is in some respects different. Whatever land the Romans took from their neighbours in war, they sold part and the rest they made public and gave to the poor to cultivate, on the payment of a small rent to the treasury (aerarium); but as the rich began to offer a higher rent, and ejected the poor, a law was passed which forbade any person to hold more than 500 jugera of (public) land. The law to which he alludes was one of the Licinian laws. (Camillus, 39.) This mode of occupying the land continued for a long period. It is not stated by any authority that there was originally these possessions (possessiones), as they were called, though they could not be considered by the possessors as their own, were dealt with as if they were. They made permanent improvements on them, they erected houses and other buildings, they bought and sold possessions like other property, gave them as portions with their daughters, and transmitted them to their children. There is no doubt that a possessor had a good title to his possession against all claimants; and there must have been legal remedies in cases of trespass, intrusion, and other disturbances of possession. In course of time very large tracts had come into the possession of wealthy individuals, and the small occupiers had sold their possessions, and in some cases, it is said, had been ejected, though it is not said how, by a powerful neighbour. This, it is further said, arose in a great degree from the constant demands of the state for the services of her citizens in war. The possessors were often called from their fields to serve in the armies, and if they were too poor to employ labourers in their absence, or if they had no slaves, their farms must have been neglected. The rich stocked their estates with slaves, and refused to employ free labourers, because free men were liable to military service, and slaves were not. The free population of many parts of Italy thus gradually decreased, the possessions of the rich were extended, and most of the labourers were slaves. The Italian allies of Rome, who served in her armies and won her victories, were ground down by poverty, taxes, and military service. They had not even the resources of living by their labour, for the rich would only employ slaves; and though slave labour under ordinary circumstances is not so profitable as free labour, it would be more profitable in a state of society in which the free labourers were liable at all times to be called out to military service. Besides this, the Roman agricultural slave was hard worked, and an unfeeling master might contrive to make a good profit out of him by a few years of bondage; and if he died, his place would readily be supplied by a new purchase. Such a system of cultivation might be profitable to a few wealthy capitalists, and would ensure a large amount of surplus produce for the market; but the political consequences would be injurious. The first proposition of an Agrarian law, according to Livy, was that of the consul Spurius Cassius, B.C. 484, a measure, as Livy observes, which was never proposed up to his time (the period of Augustus) without exciting the greatest commotion. The object of this law was to give to the Latins half of the lands which had been taken from the Hernici, and the other half to the plebes. He also proposed to divide among the plebes a portion of the public land, which was possessed by the patricians. The measure of Cassius does not appear to have been carried, and after the expiration of his office, he was tried, condemned, and put to death, on some charge of treasonable designs, and of aspiring to the kingly power. The circumstances of his trial and death were variously reported by various authorities. (Livy, ii. 41.) Dionysius (Antiq. Rom. viii. 76) says that the senate stopped the agitation of Cassius by a measure of their own. A Consultum was passed to the effect that ten men of consular rank should be appointed to ascertain the boundaries of the public land, and to determine how much should be let and how much distributed among the plebes; it was further provided that if the Isopolite and allied states should henceforth aid the Romans in making any further acquisitions of land, they should have a portion of it. The Senatus Consultum being proposed to the popular assembly (nuos), whatever that body may here mean, stopped the agitation of Cassius. This statement is precise enough and consistent with all that we know of the history of the Agrarian laws; nor does its historical value seem to be much impaired by the remarks of Niebuhr upon it (Licinian Rogations, vol. iii. note 12). At length, in the year B.C. 375, the tribunes C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius brought forward among other measures an Agrarian law, which after much opposition was carried in the year B.C. 365. The measures of Licinius and his colleague are generally spoken of under the name of the Licinian Rogations. The provisions of this law are not very exactly known, but the principal part of them may be collected from Livy (vi. 35), Plutarch (Tib. Gracchus, 8), and Appian (Civil Wars, i. 8). No person was henceforth to occupy more than five hundred jugera of public land for cultivation or planting; and every citizen was qualified to hold to that amount, at least of public land acquired subsequently to the passing of the law. It was also enacted that every citizen might feed one hundred head of large cattle and five hundred head of small cattle on the public pastures. Any person who exceeded the limits prescribed by the law was liable to be fined by the plebeian ædiles, and to be ejected from the land which he occupied illegally. The rent payable to the state on arable land was a tenth of the produce, and that on lands planted with fruit or other trees was a fifth. This is not mentioned by Appian as a provision of that law which limited the possessions to five hundred jugera, but as an old rule; but if the law of Licinius contained nothing against it, this provision would of course remain in force. A fixed sum was also paid, according to the old rule, for each head of small and large cattle that was kept on the public pastures. The rent was farmed or sold for a lustrum, that is, five years, to the highest bidder. There was another provision mentioned by Appian as part of the law which limited possession to five hundred jugera, which is very singular. To render it more intelligible, the whole passage should be taken together, which is this: "It was enacted that no man should have more of this land (public land) than five hundred jugera, nor feed more than a hundred large and five hundred small cattle; and for these purposes the law required them to have a number of free men, who were to watch what was going on and to inform.” * Niebuhr This passage of Appian is very obscure, but it has certainly been misunderstood by Niebuhr. The Latin version is "Decretum praeterea est, ut ad curanda opera rustica certum numerum simply expresses the last enactment thus : "The possessors of the public land are obliged to employ free men as field labourers in a certain proportion to the extent of their possessions." Nothing is said as to any assignment of lands to the plebeians by the law of Stolo, though Niebuhr adds the following as one of the clauses of the law: "Whatever portions of the public land persons may at present possess above five hundred jugers, either in fields or plantations, shall be assigned to all the plebeians in lots of seven jugers as absolute property." He observes in a note: "No historian, it is true, speaks of this assignment, but it must have been made;" and then follow some reasons why it must have been made, part of which are good to show that it was not made. But though Livy does not speak of assignments of land as being made to the Plebes, such assignment is mentioned as one of the objects of his laws in the speech of Licinius (Livy, vi. 39) and of his opponent Appius Claudius (vi. 41). About two hundred and thirty years after the passing of the Licinian law, the tribune Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, who was of a plebeian but noble family, brought forward his Agrarian law, B.C. 133. The same complaints were still made as in the time of Licinius: there was general poverty, diminished population, and a great number of servile labourers. Accordingly he proposed that the Licinian law as to the five hundred jugera should be renewed or confirmed, which implies, not perhaps that the law had been repealed, but at least that it had fallen into disuse: but he proposed to allow a man to hold two hundred and fifty jugera, in addition to the five hundred, for each son that he had; though this must have been limited to two sons, as Niebuhr observes, inasmuch as one thousand jugera was the limit which a man was allowed to hold. The land that remained after this settlement was to be distributed by commissioners among the poor. His proposed law also contained a clause that the poor should not alienate their allotments. This Agrarian law only applied to the Roman public lands in Apulia, Samnium, and other parts of Italy, which were in large masses: it did not affect the public lands which had already been assigned to individuals in ownerships or sold. Nor did it comprise the land of Capua, which had been made public in the war against Hannibal, nor the Stellatis Ager: these fertile tracts were reserved as a valuable public property, and were not touched by any Agrarian law before that of C. Julius Cæsar. The The complaints of the possessors were loud against this proposed law; and to the effect which has already been stated. They alleged that it was unjust to disturb them in the possessions which they had so long enjoyed, and on which they had made great improvements. policy of Gracchus was to encourage population by giving to the poor small allotments, which was indeed the object of such grants as far back as the time of the capture of Veii (Livy, v. 30): he wished to establish a body of small independent landholders. He urged on the possessors the equity of his proposed measure, and the policy of having the country filled with free labourers instead of slaves; and he showed them that they would be indemnified for what they should lose, by receiving, as compensation for their improvements, the ownership of five hundred jugera, and the half of that amount for those who had children. It seems doubtful if the law as finally carried gave any compensation to the persons who were turned out of their possessions, for such part of their possessions as they lost, or for the improvements on it. (Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, x.) Three persons (triumviri) were appointed to ascertain what was public land, and to divide it according to the law: Tiberius had himself, his brother Caius, and his father-in-law Appius Claudius appointed to be commissioners, might arise out of this law. Tiberius with full power to settle all suits which Gracchus was murdered in a tumult excited by his opponents at the election F when he was a second time a candidate for the tribuneship (B.c. 133). The law, however, was carried into effect after his death, for the party of the nobility prudently yielded to what they saw could not be resisted. But the difficulties of fully executing the law were great. The possessors of public land neglected to make a return of the lands which they occupied, upon which Fulvius Flaccus, Papirius Carbo, and Caius Gracchus, who were now the commissioners for carrying the law into effect, gave notice that they were ready to receive the statements of any informer; and numerous suits arose. All the private land which was near the boundary of the public land was subjected to a strict investigation as to its original sale and boundaries, though many of the owners could not produce their titles after such a lapse of time. The result of the admeasurement was often to dislodge a man from his well-stocked lands and remove him to a bare spot, from lands in cultivation to land in the rough, to a marsh or to a swamp; for the boundary of the public land after the several acquisitions by conquest had not been accurately ascertained, and the mode of permissive occupation had led to great confusion in boundaries. "The wrong done by the rich," says Appian, "though great, was difficult exactly to estimate; and this measure of Gracchus put everything into confusion, the possessors being moved and transferred from the grounds which they were occupying to others" (Civil Wars, i. 18). Such a general dislodge- | ment of the possessors was a violent Revolution. Tiberius Gracchus had also proposed that so much of the inheritance of Attalus III., king of Pergamus, who had bequeathed his property to the Roman State, as consisted of money, should be distributed among those who received allotments of land, in order to supply them with the necessary capital for cultivating it. (Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, 14.) It is not stated by Plutarch that the measure was carried, though it probably was. Caius Gracchus, who was tribune B.C. 123, renewed the Agrarian Law of his brother, which it appears had at least not been fully carried into effect; and he carried measures for the establishment of several colonies, which were to be composed of those citizens who were to receive grants of land. A variety of other measures, some of undoubted value, were passed in his tribunate; but they do not immediately concern the present inquiry. Caius got himself appointed to execute the measures which he carried. But the party of the nobility beat Cains at his own weapons; they offered the plebes more than he did. They procured the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus to propose measures which went far beyond those of Caius Gracchus. Livius accordingly proposed the establishment of twelve colonies, whereas Gracchus had only proposed two. (Plutarch, Caius Gracchus, 9.) The law of Gracchus also had required the poor to whom land was assigned to pay a rent to the treasury, which payment was either in the nature of a tax or an acknowledgment that the land still belonged to the state: Drusus relieved them from this payment. Drusus also was prudent enough not to give himself or his kinsmen any appointment under the law for founding the colonies. Such appointments were places of honour at least, and probably of profit too. The downfall of Caius was thus prepared, and, like his brother, he was murdered by the party of the nobility, B.C. 121, when he was a third time a candidate for the tribunate. Soon after the death of Caius Gracchus, an enactment was passed which repealed that part of the law of the elder Gracchus which forbade those who received assignments of lands from selling them. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 27.) The historian adds, which one might have conjectured without being told, that the rich immediately bought their lands of the poor; "or forced the poor out of their lands on the pretext that they had bought them;" which is not quite intelligible. Another law, which Appian attributes to Spurius Borius, enacted that there should be no future grants of lands, that those who had lands should keep them, but pay a rent or tax to the Aerarium, and that this * ταῖσδε ταῖς is probably corrupt. money should be distributed among the poor. This measure then contained a poor-law, as we call it, or imposed a tax for their maintenance. This measure, observes Appian, was some relief to the poor by reason of the distribution of money, but it contributed nothing to the increase of population. The main object of Tiberius Gracchus, as already stated, was to encourage procreation by giving small allotments of land, a measure well calculated to effect that object. Appian adds:-"When the law of Gracchus had been in effect repealed by these devices, and it was a very good and excellent law, if it could have been carried into effect, another tribune not long after carried a law which repealed that relating to the payment of the tax or rent; and thus the plebes lost everything at In consequence of all this, there was still greater lack than before of citizens, soldiers, income from the (public) land, and distributions." once. Various Agrarian laws were passed between the time of the Gracchi and the outbreak of the Marsic war, B.C. 90, of which the law of Spurius Thorius (lex Thoria) is assigned by Rudorff to the year of the city 643, or B.c. 111; and this appears to be the third of the laws to which Appian alludes as passed shortly after the death of Caius Gracchus. Cicero also (Brutus, 36) alludes to the law of Thorius as a bad measure, which relieved the public land of the tax (vectigal). The subject of this lex was the public land in Italy south of the rivers Rubico and Macra, or all Italy except Cisalpine Gaul; the public land in the Roman province of Africa, from which country the Romans derived a large supply of grain; the public land in the territory of Corinth; and probably other public land also, for the bronze tablet on which this law is preserved is merely a fragment, and the Agrarian laws of the seventh century of the city appear to have related to all the provinces of the Roman state. One tract, however, was excepted from the Thoria lex, the ager Campanus, or fertile territory of Capua, which had been declared public land during the war with Hannibal, and which neither the Gracchi nor any other poli tician, not even Lucius Sulla, ventured to touch: this land was reserved for a bolder hand. The provisions of the Thoria lex are examined by Rudorff in an elaborate essay. In the year B.C. 91 the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus the younger, the son of the Drusus who had opposed Caius Gracchus, endeavoured to gain the favour of the plebes by the proposal of laws to the same purport as those of the Gracchi, and the favour of the Socii, or Italian allies, by proposing to give them the full rights of Roman citizens. "His own words," says Florus (iii. 17), "are extant, in which he declared that he had left nothing for any one else to give, unless a man should choose to divide the mud or the skies." Drusus agitated at the instigation of the nobles, who wished to depress the equestrian body, which had become powerful; but his Agrarian profusion, which was intended to gain the favour of the plebes, affected the interests of the Socii, who occupied public land in various parts of Italy, and accordingly they were to be bought over by the grant of the Roman citizenship. Drusus lost his life in the troubles that followed the passing of his Agrarian law, and the Socii, whose hopes of the citizenship were balked, broke out in that dangerous insurrection called the Marsic or Social War, which threatened Rome with destruction, and the danger of which was only averted by conceding, by a Lex Julia, what the allies demanded (B.c. 90). The laws of Drusus were declared void, after his death, for some informality. The proposed Agrarian law of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus, in B.c. 63, the year of Cicero's consulship, was the most sweeping Agrarian law ever proposed at Rome. Rullus proposed to appoint ten persons with power to sell everything that belonged to the state, both in Italy and out of Italy, the domains of the kings of Macedonia and Pergamus, lands in Asia, Egypt, the province of Africa, in a word everything; even the territory of Capua was included. The territory of Capua was at that time occupied and cultivated by Roman plebeians (colitur et possidetur), an industrious class of good husbandmen and good soldiers: the pro |