Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic Part 13

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 a.n.a.lyzed 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 Caesar, 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 Caesar and Bibulus[3] (his colleague) entered on the consulship, they began to quarrel and to make preparation to support their parties by force. But Caesar 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 Caesar, 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 mult.i.tude, for the number of those who had three children was 20,000. This proposal met with opposition from many of the senators, and Caesar, 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 a.s.sembly, asked the opinion of Pompeius and Cra.s.sus, 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 Caesar's power.... Now Caesar 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, Caesar proposed death as a penalty for not taking the oath and the a.s.sembly 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 _Campa.n.u.s 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 a.s.signed.[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 cla.s.s 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. Caesar, at his own request, was excused from serving, but Pompey and Cra.s.sus were the chief ones, thus furnishing sufficient reason for supposing that the soldier was provided for. The pa.s.sage of this bill amounted in substance to the reestablishment 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 munic.i.p.al const.i.tution 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 Ca.s.sius, Bk., x.x.xVIII, 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' _Caesar_, 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, _Rom. Alter._, III, 273.]

[Footnote 10: Cicero, _ad. Att._, VIII, 4.]

[Footnote 11: Dion Ca.s.sius, 45, c. 12; Cicero, _ad Att._, X, 8.]

[Footnote 12: Cicero, _Phil._, II, 39: "agrum Campanum, qui c.u.m de vectigalibus eximebatur, ut militibus daretur." Marquardt u. Momm., _Rom.

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 CaeSAR AND POMPEY.

After Pompey had been vanquished at Pharsalia, and the republicans in Africa, Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar_, 38.]

SEC. 19.--DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE DEATH OF CaeSAR TO THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS.

The death of Caesar in no way stopped the a.s.signment 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 Caesar 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 Caesar had already colonized; the remainder of the domain lands, the _ager Campa.n.u.s_ 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 Ca.s.sius, Suetonius and Velleius Paterculus all mention these a.s.signments. After the battle of Philippi and the defeat and death of Brutus and Ca.s.sius, 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.