CHAPTER XII.

TIBERIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS.

B.C. 133.

THE nature of the Roman public land and its occupancy has been explained. The facts were collected from various passages of the antient writers and put together in such form as to make the matter intelligible. There is one long passage in Appian which ought to be read by every person who wishes to understand this subject. It is in the beginning of Appian's history of the Roman civil wars. I have translated

the passage as well as I can, but it is not quite free from difficulties, and a few words in it may be differently interpreted by different persons. However the meaning of the whole is clear; and any careful reader may understand it as well as the learned.

"The Romans as they conquered successively parts of Italy used to take a portion of the territory and build cities in it, or they chose settlers among their own people to go to the cities which already existed; and they designed these settlements to serve as garrisons. Now as to the land which from time to time they acquired in war, the cultivated part they immediately distributed among the colonists, or sold it or let it; but as to the land which was then lying waste in consequence of the war, which land was indeed the greater part, having no leisure to distribute it in allotments, they gave notice in the mean time that those who chose might cultivate it on payment of part of the yearly produce, which was a tenth part of the produce of arable land and a fifth part of the produce of the land which was planted. There

was also fixed a payment to be made by the flock-masters both in respect of the larger and the smaller animals. Now this was done to favour the increase of population among the Italian people, whom the Romans observed to be a most laborious race, and that they might have them as auxiliaries in war. But it turned out quite different from what they expected; for the rich, who had occupied most of this undivided land, after the lapse of time feeling sure that nobody would take it from them, got possession of the lands adjoining their own; and whatever other small farms there were belonging to the poor, by persuading some of the owners to sell and by forcibly ejecting others, they cultivated large tracts of country instead of their former estates. And they used for the purposes of cultivation and looking after their stock slave labourers whom they purchased, which was done to avoid the inconvenience of their workmen, if they had employed free men, being taken off for military service. This acquisition of slave labourers also brought the owners much profit by reason of the large number of children that the slaves had, for they multiplied in security through being exempt from military service. And thus the rich became very rich, and the slaves became abundant all through the country. But the Italian people were reduced in numbers and there was a scarcity of men among them, for they were ground down by poverty and taxes and military service; and if ever they had any respite from their troubles, they spent their time in idleness, for the land was occupied by the rich, who used slaves instead of free men to cultivate it.”

This description, as will appear from what follows, applies to the time before the Licinia Lex, though it may apply also to the times after the enactment of that Lex and up to the legislation of Ti. Gracchus. As a general description of the Roman practice with respect to the land acquired in war, it is sufficient, and much clearer than most modern expositions. It does not affect to say more than might be known to every man who took pains to learn something about the matter, and in essentials it is consistent with all that we learn from other authorities.

Appian continues thus: "All this made the people (dñμos)

uneasy, fearing that they would no longer have a supply of auxiliaries from Italy, nor would their supremacy be free from danger on account of such a number of slaves. But they could not devise any correction for the evil, since it was neither easy nor altogether just to take from so many men after so long enjoyment so large a possession, which they had planted and built upon and stocked. However at last with great difficulty on the proposal of the tribunes they enacted, that no man should have more of the land' than five hundred plethra (jugera), and that he should not have of large cattle more than a hundred nor more than five hundred of the smaller; and for this cultivation and live stock they required them (the possessors) to have a number of free men, whose duty should be to watch the produce (rà yiyvoμéva) and to report or give information (unvúσev). Having comprised these provisions in the law they confirmed it by oath and fixed a penalty, thinking that the remainder of the land would immediately be sold (and distributed) in small parcels (Kar' oλiyor) among the poor. But nobody cared either for the provisions of the law or the oaths, and even those who seemed to regard it, distributed the land (the amount above the five hundred jugera) among their kinsfolk, but the greater part (of the possessors) paid no regard at all to the law."

The first part of the extract from Appian presents several matters for consideration, which have been overlooked. Appian does not say that those who were invited to occupy waste lands were Roman citizens, though, as he has spoken of Roman colonists being settled in the newly acquired lands, it might be most consistent to suppose that the invitation to occupy the wastes was also addressed to the Romans. But he says soon after that the Romans did this 'to favour the increase of population among the Italian people,' who were the Roman allies. Now the term 'Italian

1 Schweighaeuser's text has of this land' (rñode Tis yns), the reading of two MSS. I have taken the reading (rñç yñs) of the land,' not because the other reading may not be right, but that I may not be charged with taking a doubtful reading in order to support an opinion. I think that Appian means the Public Land, whether we read ' of the land' or 'of this land.' Some people have a different opinion. A careful reader can form his own judgment.

M

people' or 'stock' would include the Romans in one sense, but the Romans did not name themselves 'Italians;' and 'Italian people' in this passage of Appian does not include the Romans, for he says that the Romans allowed those who chose to occupy the Public Lands, in order to encourage the increase of the Italian people and to secure their help. Appian therefore says nothing of Roman citizens occupying waste lands. The meaning of his words is certain, but whether he has told the truth or has not said what he intended to say, I will not determine. Again, at the end of the first passage, he speaks of the possession of these lands by a few having caused a diminution of the Italian free population and a great increase of slaves. Nothing is here said of the diminution of the Roman population.

In the second passage Appian says that the state of the Italian cultivators made the people uneasy, because they feared that they should lose the auxiliary Italian troops, without which they would soon have lost their supremacy in Italy. Here the 'people' are represented as not concerned directly about themselves, but about the condition of the Italians. In Livy's story of the disputes, which preceded the Licinian law, the Roman Plebs are represented as only concerned about themselves. It is impossible to give to Appian's words any other meaning than what I have stated. What he says is as plain as it can be. We may settle the matter by supposing that neither Livy nor Appian was accurately acquainted with the condition of the poor Roman and Italian cultivators before the enactment of the Licinian law. I think it is certain that many of these waste lands were occupied by people who were dependent on and furnished troops to the Romans, and that it is more likely that the Romans would allow their dependents to occupy waste lands than let them lie unused for want of a sufficient number of occupiers. We have already seen in the tradition about Spurius Cassius that he proposed to divide some land taken from the Hernici equally between Latini and Roman plebeians. If the Roman allies (Socii) from time to time were permitted to occupy waste lands as well as Roman citizens, the richer men among the Socii would do as the richer Romans did: they would

lay hold of the best part of the land and try to exclude others. We have evidence that the Public Land was sometimes appropriated by private persons, who do not appear to have been Roman citizens, as for instance in the case of the Campanian land (Livy xlii. 19), of which it is said that private persons had occupied it indiscriminately. The consul Sp. Postumius B.C. 174 examined into the matter and a large part of the land was recovered for the use of the state, and let by the censors. We learn however from the fragments of Lici

nianus that these Possessors were indemnified: in fact their interest in these lands was afterwards estimated by P. Lentulus and the value was paid. Cicero's statement in his second oration against Rullus is that 'private lands,' as he terms them, encroached on the Public Land of Campania, and that Lentulus reported that not one of the holders of these 'private lands' could be induced to sell them to the state; and Cicero leaves us to conclude that the matter ended here. cannot trust him in such a case.

But we

Another matter requires a brief notice. In the first extract Appian speaks of the great increase of slaves by birth, which fact implies a due proportion of male and female slaves, cohabitation among them, and a treatment by their masters which was not too severe to check the generative capacity of the slaves or to destroy the children by a deficient allowance of food. In the second extract Appian speaks of the danger that might be apprehended from the decrease in the number of free men and the increase of the slaves. Dureau de la Malle in his work entitled 'Économie Politique des Romains' has discussed the question of the Servile population of Italy. He maintains that the number of slaves in the early part of Roman history was comparatively small, an opinion which is in harmony with all that we know of the state of Italy at that time. He also relies on the passage in Dionysius' Roman Antiquities (ix. 25) as evidence that in the year B.C. 476, according to the number of the population given by the nearest census to that year, there were more than 110,000 Roman citizens above the age of puberty, and triple this number of women, children, slaves, and merchants and men following mechanical occupations; none of the mer