A History of Rome, Vol 1 by A H.J. Greenidge

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The benefits conferred by the Gracchi on the poorer members of the
proletariate were also respected. The corn law may have been left
untouched for the time being[768]--a natural concession, for the senate
could only hope to rule by its influence with the urban mob, and, in the
case of so simple an institution, any modification would have been so
patent an infringement of the rights of the recipients as to have
immediately excited suspicion and anger. With the agrarian law it was
different. Its repeal was indeed impossible; but the land-hunger of the
dispossessed capitalists might to some extent be appeased by a measure
that was not only tolerable, but welcome; and modifications, so gradual
and subtle that their meaning would be unintelligible to the masses,
might subsequently be introduced to remedy observed defects, to calm the
apprehensions of the allies, and perhaps to secure the continuance of
large holdings, if economic causes should lead to their revival. The
agrarian legislation of the ten years that followed the fall of Caius
Gracchus, seems to have been guided by the wishes of the senate; but
much of it does not bear on its surface the signs which we might expect
of capitalistic influence or oligarchic neglect of the poor. Large
portions of it seem rather to reveal the desire of banishing for ever a
harrowing question which was the opportunity of the demagogue; and the
peculiar mixture of prudence, liberality, and selfishness which this
legislation reveals, can only be appreciated by an examination of its
separate stages.

Shortly after the death of Caius Gracchus--perhaps in the very year of
his fall--a law was passed permitting the alienation of the
allotments.[769] This measure must have been as welcome to the lately
established possessors as it was to the large proprietors; it removed
from the former a galling restraint which, like all such legal
prohibitions, formed a sentimental rather than an actual grievance, but
one that was none the less keenly felt on that account; while to the
latter it offered the opportunity of satisfying those expectations,
which the initial struggles of the newly created farmers must in many
cases have aroused. The natural consequence of the enactment was that
the spurious element amongst the peasant-holders, represented by those
whose tastes and capacities utterly unfitted them for agriculture,
parted with their allotments, which went once more to swell the large
domains of their wealthier neighbours.[770] We do not know the extent or
rapidity of this change, or the stage which it had reached when the
government thought fit to introduce a new agrarian law, which may have
been two or three years later than the enactment which permitted
alienation.[771] The new measure contained three important
provisions.[772] Firstly, it forbade the further distribution of public
land, and thus put an end to the agrarian commission which had never
ceased to exist, and had continued to enjoy, if not to exercise, its
full powers since the restoration of its judicial functions by Caius
Gracchus. We cannot say to what extent the commission was still
Encountering claims on its jurisdiction and powers of distribution at
the time of its disappearance; but fourteen years is a long term of
power for such an extraordinary office, whose work was necessarily one
of perpetual unsettlement; and the disappearance of the triumvirs must
have been welcome, not only to the existing Roman occupants of land
which still remained public, but to those of the Italians to whom the
commission had ever been a source of apprehension. The extinction of the
office must have been regarded with indifference by those for whom the
commission had already provided, and by the large mass of the urban
proletariate which did not desire this type of provision. The residuum
of citizens which still craved land may be conceived to have been small,
for eagerness to become an agriculturist would have suggested an earlier
claim; and the passing of the commission was probably viewed with no
regret by any large section of the community. The law then proceeded to
establish the rights of all the occupants of land in Italy that had once
been public and had been dealt with by the commission. To all existing
occupants of the land which had been assigned, perfect security of
tenure was given, and this security may have been extended now, as it
certainly was later, to many of the occupants who still remained on
public land which had not been subjected to distribution. So far as the
land which had been assigned was concerned, this law could have made no
specification as to the size of the allotments, for the law permitting
alienation had made it practically private property and given its
purchaser a perfectly secure title. Hence the accumulations which
followed the permit to alienate were secured to their existing
possessors, and a legal recognition was given to the formation of such
large estates as had come into existence during the last three years.
But the security of tenure was conditioned by the reimposition of the
dues payable to the State, which had been abolished by Drusus. We are
not informed whether these dues were to be henceforth paid only by those
who had received allotments from the land commission, or by all in whose
hands such allotments were at the moment to be found; perhaps the
intention was to impose them on all lands that had been public before
the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus; although many of the larger
proprietors, who had recently added to their holdings, might have urged
in their defence that they had acquired the land as private property and
that it was burdened by no dues at the time of its acquisition. But,
even if this burden fell mainly on the class of smaller possessors, it
could scarcely be regarded as a grievance, for it had formed part of the
Gracchan scheme, and there was no legitimate reason why the newly
established class of cultivators should be placed in a better position
than the older occupants of the public domain, who still paid dues both
on arable land and for the privilege of pasturing their flocks. The
temporary motive which had led to their abolition had now ceased to
exist, for the agricultural colonies of Drusus, who had promised land
free from all taxes, had not been established, and the chief, almost the
sole, example of a recent assignment on such liberal principles was to
be discovered in distant Africa. But, even if the cultivators grumbled,
their complaints were not dangerous to the government. They would have
found no echo at Rome, where the urban proletariate was content with the
easier provision which had been made for its support; and the new
revenues from the public land were made still more acceptable to the
eyes of the masses by the provision contained in this agrarian law that
they should be employed solely for the benefit of needier citizens. The
precise nature of the promised employment is unhappily unknown, our
authority merely informing us that "they were to be used for purposes of
distribution". We cannot understand by these words free gifts either in
money or corn; for such extreme measures never entered even into the
social ideals of Caius Gracchus, and the senate to its credit never
deigned to purchase popularity through the pauperising institutions by
which the Caesars maintained the security of their rule in Rome. The
words might imply an extension of the system of the sale of cheap corn,
or a cheapening of the rates at which it was supplied; but the Gracchan
system seems hardly to have admitted of extension, so far as the number
of recipients was concerned, and cheaper sales would hardly have been
encouraged by a government, which, anxious as it was to secure
popularity, was responsible for the financial administration of the
State and looked with an anxious eye upon the existing drain on the
resources of the treasury.[773] Perhaps the new revenues were held up to
the people as a guarantee that the sale of cheap corn would be
continued, and public confidence was increased when it was pointed out
that there was a special fund available for the purpose. If we abandon
the view that the promised employment of the revenues in the interest of
the people referred to the distribution of corn, there remains the
possibility that it had reference to the acquisition of fresh land for
assignation. This promise would indeed have rendered practicable the
partial realisation of the shadowy schemes of Drusus, which had never
been officially withdrawn; but it is doubtful whether it would have done
much to strengthen the hold of the government upon the urban voter; for
the whole scheme of this new land law seems to prove that the agrarian
question was viewed with indifference, and no pressure seems to have
been put on the government to carry their earlier promises into effect.

Apart from the welcome prospect implied in the abolition of the agrarian
commission, no positive guarantee against disturbance had yet been given
to the Latins and Italians. This was formally granted, in terms unknown
to us, at the appropriate hands of Marcus Livius Drusus during his
tenure of the consulship.[774] The senate, now that it had satisfied the
larger proprietors and the urban proletariate, and could boast that it
had at least not injured the smaller cultivators, completed its work of
pacification by holding out the hand of fellowship to the allies. It was
tacitly understood that the new friend was not to ask for more, but he
might be induced to look to the senate as his refuge against the
rapacity of the mob and the recklessness of its leaders.

Shortly afterwards the tribune Spurius Thorius[775] carried a law which
again abolished the _vectigal_ on the allotments. If we regard this
measure as an independent effort on the part of the tribune, it may have
been an answer to the protests of the smaller agriculturists still
struggling for existence; if it was dictated by the senate, it may have
been due to the absorption of the allotments by the larger proprietors
and their unwillingness to pay dues for land which they had added to
their private property. But, to whatever party we may assign it, we may
see in it also the desire to reach a final settlement of the agrarian
question by abolishing all the invidious distinctions between the
different tenures of land which had once formed part of the public
domain. It removed the injustice of burdening the small holding with a
rent which was not exacted from estates that had been partly formed by
accretions of such allotments; and by the abolition of all dues[776] it
tended to remove all land which had been assigned, from the doubtful
category to which it had hitherto belonged of possessions which, though
in a sense private, still recognised the overlordship of the State, and
to revive in all its old sharpness the simple distinction between public
and private land. This tendency makes it probable that the law of
Thorius is identical with one of which we possess considerable
fragments; for this partially preserved enactment is certainly as
sweeping a measure as could have been devised by any one eager to see
the agrarian question, so far as it affected Italian soil, finally
removed from the region of political strife.

Internal evidence makes it probable that this law was passed in the year
111 B.C.,[777] and consequently at the close of that period of
comparative quiescence which was immediately followed by the political
storm raised by the conduct of the war in Numidia. It may, therefore, be
regarded as a product of senatorial enlightenment, although its
provisions would be quite as consistent with the views of a tolerably
sober democrat. The main scope of the enactment is to give the character
of absolute private ownership, unburdened by any restrictions such as
the payment of dues to the State, to nearly all the land which had been
public at the time of the passing of the agrarian law of Tiberius
Gracchus. The first provisions refer to lands which had not been dealt
with by the agrarian commissioners. Any occupant of the public domain,
who has been allowed to preserve his allotment intact, because it does
not exceed the limit fixed by the earlier laws, and any one who has
received public land from the State in exchange for a freehold which he
has surrendered for the foundation of a colony, is henceforth to hold
such portions of the public domain as his private property. The same
provision holds for all land that has been assigned, whether by colonial
or agrarian commissioners. The first class of assignments are those
incidental to the one or two colonies of Caius Gracchus, and perhaps of
Drusus, that were actually established in Italy. Even at the time of
settlement such land must have been made the private property of its
holders; and this law, therefore, but confirms the tenure, and implies
the validity of the act of colonisation. Such land is mentioned as
having been "given and assigned in accordance with a resolution of the
people and the plebs," and all eases in which recent colonial laws had
been repealed or dropped--cases which would include Caius Gracchus's
threatened partition of the Campanian territory--are tacitly excluded.
The second class of assignments refer to those made by the
land-commissioners during the whole period of their chequered existence,
and the land whose private character is thus confirmed, must have
covered much the larger part of what had once been the State's domain
in Italy.

A certain portion of this domain still remains, however, the property of
the State and is not converted into private land. The whole of the soil
which had been given in usufruct to colonies and municipal towns, is
retained in its existing condition; the holders, whether Latin colonists
or Roman citizens, are confirmed in their possessions; but, as the land
still remains public, they are doubtless expected to continue to pay
their quit-rent to the State. Similar provision is made for a peculiar
class of land, which had been given by Rome as security for a national
debt. The debt had never been liquidated, probably because the creditors
preferred the land. This they were now to retain on condition of
continued payment of the quit-rent, which marked the fact that the State
was still its nominal owner. A public character is also maintained for
land which had been assigned for the maintenance of roads. Here we find
the only instance of an actual assignation of the Gracchan commissioners
which was not converted, into private property; the obvious reason for
this exception being that these occupants performed a specific and
necessary duty, which would disappear if their tenure was converted into
absolute ownership. Exception against ownership was also made for those
commons on which the occupants of surrounding farms had an exclusive
right of sending their flocks to pasture;[778] for the conversion of
such grazing land into private lots would have injured the collective
interests, and conferred little benefit on the individuals of the
group.[779] The remaining classes of land which still remain the
property of the State, are the roads of Italy, such public land as had
been specially exempted from distribution by the legislation of the
Gracchi, and such as had remained public on other grounds. The only
known instance of the first class is the Campanian territory, which
continued to be let on leases by the State and to bring to the treasury
a sure and considerable revenue; the second class was probably
represented by land which was not arable and had for this reason escaped
distribution. The law provides that it is not to be occupied but to
serve the purposes of grazing-land, and a limit is fixed to the number
of cattle and sheep belonging to a single owner to which it is to afford
free pasturage. For the enjoyment of grazing-rights beyond this limit
dues are to be paid to the contractors who have purchased the right of
collection from the State.

The law then quits the public domains of Italy for those of Africa and
Corinth, partly for the purpose of specifying with exactitude the rights
of the various occupiers and tenants who were settled on the
territories, but chiefly with the object of effecting the sale of some
of the public domain in the province of Africa and the dependency of
Achaea. This intention of alienation is perhaps the chief reason why the
great varieties of tenure of the African soil are marshalled before us
with such detail and precision; for it was necessary, in view of the
contemplated sale, to re-assert the stability of rights that should be
secure by their very nature or had been guaranteed by solemn compact.
But the occasion of a comprehensive settlement of the agrarian question
in Italy was no doubt gladly seized as affording the right opportunity
for surveying, revising, and establishing the claims of those who were
in enjoyment of what was, or had been, the provincial domain of Rome
across the seas. The rights of Roman citizens and subjects are
indifferently considered, and amongst the former those of the settlers
who had journeyed to Africa in accordance with the promises of the
Rubrian law are fully recognised. The degree of permanence accorded to
the manifold kinds of tenure passed in review can not be determined from
our text; but, even when all claims that deserved a permanent
recognition had been subtracted, there still remained a residuum of
land, leased at quinquennial intervals by the censors, which might be
alienated without the infliction of injury on established rights. We do
not know to what extent this sale, the mechanism for which was minutely
provided for in the law, was carried in Africa; its application to the
domain land of Corinth was either withdrawn or, if carried out, was but
slight or temporary; for Corinthian land remained to be threatened by
later agrarian legislation. It is not easy to suggest a motive for this
sale; for it would seem a short-sighted policy to part, on an extensive
scale and therefore presumably at a cheapened rate, with some of the
most productive land in the world, such as was the African domain of the
period, in order to recoup the treasury for the immediate pecuniary
injury which it was suffering in the loss of the revenues from the
public land of Italy. Perhaps the government had grown suspicious of the
operations of the middle-men, and, since they had restricted their
activity by limiting the amount of public land in Italy, deemed a
similar policy advisable in relation to some of their foreign
dependencies.

The length at which we have dwelt on this law is proportionate to its
importance in the political history of the times, and if we possessed
fuller knowledge of its effects, we should doubtless be able to add, in
their social history as well. Its economic results, however, are
exceedingly obscure, and possibly it produced none worthy of serious
consideration; for the artificial stability which it may have seemed to
give to the existing tenure of land could in no way check the play of
economic forces. If these tendencies were still in favour of large
holdings,[780] the process of accumulation must have continued, and, as
we have before remarked, the accumulator was in a securer position when
purchasing land which was admittedly the private property of its owner,
than when buying allotments which might be held to be still liable to
the public dues. On the other hand, the remission of the impost must
have relieved, and the sense of private ownership inspired, the labours
of the smaller proprietors; and the perpetuation of a considerable
proportion of the Gracchan settlers is probable on general grounds. The
reason why it is difficult to give specific reasons for this belief is
that, at the time when we next begin to get glimpses of the condition of
the Italian peasant class, the great reform had been effected which
incorporated the nations of Italy into Rome. The existence of numerous
small proprietors in the Ciceronian period is attested, but many of
these may have been citizens recently given to Rome by the Italian
stocks, amongst whom agriculture on a small scale had never
become extinct.

But the political import of this measure is considerable. By restricting
to narrow limits all the land of Italy to which the State could make a
claim, it altered the character of agrarian agitation for the future. It
did not indeed fulfil its possible object of obviating such measures;
but it rendered the vested interests of all Italian cultivators secure,
with the exception of the lessees of the leased domain, who perhaps had
no claim to permanence of tenure. This domain was represented chiefly by
the Campanian land: and the reformer who would make this territory his
prey, injured the finances of the State more than the interests of the
individual. If he desired more, he must seek it either in the foreign
domains of Rome or by the adoption of some scheme of land purchase.
Assignment of lands in particular districts of Italy or in the provinces
naturally took the form of colonisation, and this is the favourite shape
assumed by the agrarian schemes of the future. Rome was still to witness
many fierce controversies as to the merits of the policy of colonial
expansion, and as to the wisdom of employing public property and public
revenues to this end; the rights of the conqueror to the lands of his
vanquished fellow-citizens were also to be cruelly asserted, and the
civil wars also invited a species of brigandage for the attainment of
possession which too often replaced the judgments of the courts; but
never again do we find a regular political warfare waged between the
rich and the poor for the possession of territories to which each of the
disputants laid claim. The storm which had burst on the Roman world with
the land law of Tiberius Gracchus had now spent its force. It had
undoubtedly produced a great change on the face of Italy; but this was
perhaps more striking in appearance than in reality; neither the work of
demolition, nor the opportunities offered for renewal, attained the
completeness which they had presented in the reformer's dreams.

But the peace of the citizen body was not the only blessing believed to
be secured by this removal of a temptation to tamper with Italian lands.
The anxieties of the Latins and Italians were also quieted, although it
may be questioned whether the memory of past wrongs, now rendered
irrevocable by the progress of recent agrarian experiments, did not
enter into the agitation for the conferment of the franchise, which they
still continued to sustain. The last great law, following the spirit of
the enactment of Drusus which had preceded it by about a year, does
indeed show traces of an anxiety to respect Italian claims. Apart from
the fact, which we have already mentioned, that all lands which had been
granted in usufruct to colonists, were still to be public and were,
therefore, in the case of Latin colonies, to be at the disposal of the
communities to which they had been granted by treaty, the law contains a
special provision for the maintenance of the rights of Latins and
Italians, so far as they are in harmony with the rights allowed to Roman
citizens by the enactment.[781] The guarantees which had been sanctioned
by Drusus, were therefore respected; but their observance was
conditioned by the rule that all prohibitions now created for Romans
should be extended to the allies. As we do not know the purport of
Drusus's measure, or the practices current on the Roman domains occupied
by Latins, we cannot say whether this clause produced any derogation of
their rights; but it must have limited the right of free pasturage on
the public commons, if they had possessed this in a higher degree than
was now permitted, and the right to occupy public land was also
forbidden them in the future. But it was from the negative point of view
that the law might be interpreted as creating or perpetuating a
grievance; for some of the positive benefits which it conferred seem to
have been limited to Romans. The land which it makes private property,
is land which has been assigned by colonial or agrarian commissioners,
or land which has been occupied up to a certain limit. If colonial land
had really been assigned to Latins by Caius Gracchus, their rights are
retained by this law, if they had been made Roman citizens at the time
of the settlement; but if they had been admitted as participants in the
agrarian distribution throughout Italy, their rights as owners are not
confirmed with those of Roman citizens; and the Latin who merely
occupied land was not given the privilege of the Roman possessor of
becoming the owner of the soil, if his occupation were restricted within
a certain limit.[782] He still retained merely a precarious possession,
for which dues to the State were probably exacted. It was something to
have rights confirmed, but they probably appeared less valuable when
those of others were extended. A more generous treatment could hardly
have been expected from a law of Rome dealing with her own domain,
primarily in the interests of her own citizens; but the Italians were
tending to forget their civic independence, and chose rather to compare
their personal rights with those of the Roman burgesses. Such a
comparison applied to the final agrarian settlement must have done
something to emphasise their belief in the inferiority of
their position.