Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/124

100 plebs, Publius Servilius Rullus, proposed that there should be a great distribution of land to the poorer citizens. But where was the land to be found? As the result, partly of the legislation of the Gracchi, partly of the reactionary measures which had followed their death, the whole of the public land which had formerly been held by the great squatters had ceased to belong to the State. It was now the property of individual Romans, and the agrarian agitators of the Roman Republic, though they often disregarded equitable rights of occupancy hallowed by long prescription, never mentioned the confiscation of what was legally private property. Some fresh public land had indeed been provided for this generation through the appropriation by the State of the lands of towns and individuals that had stood against Sulla, and the occupiers of these lands might well fear eviction. But Rullus protested that he had no such design. He even introduced a clause making all such land the absolute property of the present occupiers, or else paying them its money value in case they preferred to get rid of it. There remained only a small district round Capua, which, because the tenants of this land paid a rack-rent to the State, had escaped distribution in the age of the Gracchi. This Rullus proposed to parcel out, though the Treasury could ill bear the loss of the rent.

But this was the most modest feature of the bill. Rullus' commissioners were further empowered to sell the whole of the property of the Roman People beyond the seas, in order with the money so obtained