Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/310

Rh 288 AGRARIAN LAWS subject connected with the Roman constitution had been successfully investigated and explained, the object and in tention of the agrarian laws were entirely misunderstood by scholars for many centuries after the revival of letters. They were invariably represented as intended to prohibit Roman citizens from holding property in land above a certain fixed amount; and as authorising the division among the poorer citizens of the estates of private indi viduals when these exceeded the prescribed limit; thus legalising a system of plunder which would have been subversive of all social order. No such doctrine had, indeed, been admitted in any well-regulated state, ancient or modern; nor did anything analogous to it appear in the principles or practice of the Roman constitution; yet the expressions used by the ancient authors in reference to these enactments, and the disturbances to which they invariably gave rise, seemed to justify an unfavourable interpretation ; and the opinion, when once propounded, was uncondition ally received by successive generations of learned men, notwithstanding the many embarrassments and contradic tions to which it led. Romulus is represented as dividing his small territory among the members of his infant community at the rate of two jugera (each extending to two-thirds of an English acre) a-piece, as inheritable property. The whole district, however, was not thus assigned; one portion was set apart for the service of the gods and for the royal domains; and another was reserved as common land for pasture. The stock kept on the common land served to eke out a main tenance which two jugera could not otherwise have furnished to a family, and an agistment was paid to the common wealth for the pasturage. It is probable that the same principle prevailed under the regal government, and that successive adjustments of the territory were made. Such a law existed among those of Servius Tullius. The equality of property thus established seems to have been considered as a fundamental principle of the Roman constitution ; and the agrarian laws were regarded as the necessary means of wresting from the large proprietors the possessions which they had illegally acquired. Machiavelli and Montesquieu both participate in this mistake, and are far from condemn ing the agrarian laws, even when taken in the common meaning. The former alleges that the interest of every republic requires that the state should be rich and the citizens poor, and thus justifies the assumed spoliation; while Montesquieu receives it as an historical fact that Romulus adopted the principle of equality in his original distribution of the territory of Rome as the future ground of her strength, and that the tribunitian contests were but attempts to restore the original constitution. Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, b. iv. chap. vii. part i.) assents to the same interpretation, without, however, any expression of approval. The correct interpretation of the agrarian laws must thus be considered as of modern date. Amidst the violence of the French Revolution a scheme for the equal division of the national property was advocated, with great popular favour, by some of the frantic leaders, who sought a sanc tion for their extravagances in precedents drawn from the ancient republics, and particularly from the agrarian laws of the Romans. The subject was thus invested with a new interest, and engaged the attention of Professor Heyne of Gottingen, who in 1793 (Opus. Acad. iv. 350-373) ad dressed to the members of his university a paper in which he successfully combated the opinions which, up till that time, had been entertained respecting them, and showed that their object had been entirely misunderstood. Other writers, as Heeren and Hegewisch, embraced and illustrated his views; but it was reserved for the acuteness and learn ing of Niebuhr fully to develop the theory which had been suggested, and to demonstrate the fact &quot; that the agrarian laws of the Romans were in no case intended to interfere with or affect private property in land, but related exclu sively to the public domain.&quot; The theory of Niebuhr was too startling to meet with universal approval. It has accordingly been assailed by Rudorff, Bureau de la Malle (Econ. Polit. des Eomaines), Puchta, and others, who have ingeniously and plausibly supported the opinions formerly maintained; but their arguments fail to produce conviction. (Class. Mus., vol. ii.) The language of Livy passim, when referring to the agrarian laws, is inexplicable unless the interpretation of Niebuhr be adopted : &quot; If,&quot; says Dr Arnold, &quot;amongst Niebuhr s countless services to Roman history, any single one may claim our gratitude beyond the rest, it is his explanation of the true nature and character of the- agrarian laws. Twenty- four years have not yet elapsed since he first published it, but it has already overthrown the deeply-rooted false impressions which prevailed universally on the subject; and its truth, like Newton s discoveries in natural science, is not now to be proved, but to be taken as the very corner-stone of all our re searches into the. internal state of the Roman people &quot; (Hist, of Rome, vol. ii.) In almost all countries the legal property of the laud has been originally vested in the sovereign, whether we are to understand under that name a single chief, a particular portion of the nation, or the people at large. In the same manner, the property of all the land in a conquered country was held to be transferred to the sovereign power in the conquering state, and was assumed with more or less rigour as circumstances seemed to require. From the earliest times a portion of the Roman territory was thus regarded as the property of the state, and the profits arising from it were applied to the public service. The public domain (ager publicus) was at first small, but was gradually extended by the right of conquest till it embraced a large portion of the whole peninsula. In this process of extension the sub jugated communities were frequently mulcted of a propor tion of their lands, varying according to the alleged offence or the resistance which they had offered to the arms of the conquerors. Thus the Boii were deprived of one-half of their territory; the Hernici forfeited two-thirds; and the whole of the ager Campanus, the richest district in Italy, was taken from the inhabitants of Capua on the capture of their city after its revolt to Hannibal. The lands thus acquired were disposed of in various ways. A portion of them was frequently sold by auction to meet the immediate necessities of the state, and was thus con veyed in perpetuity to the purchasers. The disposal of the remainder depended on the nature and condition of the land, and its position in reference to the bulk of the com munity- If in good condition and at no great distance from the city, it was frequently assigned, in small allot ments of seven jugera (between 4 and 5 acres), to those of the poorer citizens, whose services in war gave them a claim upon the state; while in hostile districts and on exposed frontiers military colonies were planted, each colonist receiving a fixed quantity of land. In both these cases the land so assigned ceased to form part of the piiblic domain, and became the property of the recipients. In some cases the land, after having been assumed as public property, was allowed to remain in the hands of the former owners, who became the tenants of the state for a fixed period, and paid a certain rent to the Roman exchequer. The preceding remarks refer only to arable or meadow land, vineyards, or olive-gardens, which could be turned to immediate advantage. It is obvious, however, that in a country the greater part of which was acquired by conquest, large districts must have been laid waste, the inhabitants with their houses destroyed, and neither cultivators nor the means of cultivation left. Arrangements of a differ ent description were therefore necessary for lands in this