Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/127

Rh Flaminius, the first Roman statesman of his generation. As a plebeian tribune, he proposed in 232 an agrarian law, providing that the Picenian and Gallic lands in the neighborhood of Ariminum (ager Gallicus et Picenus) should be assigned to individual Roman citizens as full owners. Hitherto these lands had been occupied by the nobles and the wealthy. The new law, if enacted, promised to bring numerous settlers into this region, and not only to afford relief to the poor, but also greatly to strengthen this exposed Roman frontier. The settlement of the lands might, however, tend to arouse the Gauls, who within the last few years had renewed hostilities against Rome. The nobles were actuated by self-interest, and probably did not realize what the times demanded. Otherwise they would have proposed that an assignment of land be made at a more opportune time or place. As it was, they simply offered a stubborn opposition. Flaminius could not obtain the consent of the senate to his bill. Nevertheless, he secured its passage in the plebeian assembly — a proceeding not contrary to any constitutional provision, but contrary to constitutional usage. Even then the nobility did not yield, and opposed the execution of the law until the year 228. This obstinate resistance is the first positive evidence that the aristocracy was degenerating into an oligarchy, which considered itself the owner of the state.

Political Effects of the Flaminian Law. — By his agrarian law, Flaminius interfered in the financial administration — one of the oldest privileges of the senate — in a manner that threatened to lead to anarchy. But it was the only way still open to legitimate opposition, the only way in which political stagnation could be prevented. If the nobility had remained patriotic and tolerably just to their fellow citizens, the Flaminian law would probably have had no political effects. But in the degeneracy of later times it