Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic

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 [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: "Την δε χωραν την δε κοινην απασαν πλην της Καμπανιδος ενεμε ταυτην γαρ εν τω δημοσιω εζαιρετον δια την αρετην συνεβουλευσεν ειναι."
(Compare Dio Cassius, Bk., XXXVIII, c. 1: "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.]

[Footnote 16: Cicero, Rul., II, c. 31.]

[Footnote 17: Cicero, Phil., II, 17.]