Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/240

226 useful a man to lose, and his acquittal was secured in spite of his notorious guilt and the precedents recently established.

Agrarian Law of Rullus. — Meanwhile Pompeius was rapidly settling affairs in the East and might soon appear in Egypt. If the democrats were to anticipate him, they could not defer action. Accordingly, during the last days of 64, P. Servilius Rullus, a member of the democratic party, and other new tribunes proposed a comprehensive agrarian law (lex Servilia agraria). It was the first attempt of the kind since the Livian law of 91, and was probably inspired by Caesar. The public lands assigned or even illegally occupied after 82 were to become the property of the present possessors, and the Campanian lands (ager Campanus and campus Stellatis) were reserved for colonization. All the other public lands in Italy and, with various exceptions, in Sicily, Asia, Macedonia, Spain, and Africa, — in particular all the public lands and other public property acquired since 88, — were to be sold. The remaining public lands in the provinces were as a rule to pay a high rent. By means of the money realized in this way and from the new Asiatic revenues secured after 63, suitable lands were, with the consent of the owners, to be bought in Italy, and to be assigned in inalienable parcels to the poor citizens.

Ten Commissioners elected by seventeen districts for five years were to have charge of the execution of the law. They were to have praetorian powers and full authority to decide what domains were public, to sell, or to impose taxes on, the public lands, to buy land, and to establish colonies.

Aim and Fate of the Law. — The bill was simply an extravagant bid for political support, and its very liberality indicated the straits to which the democrats were reduced. It was designed to give Caesar and his associates an extraordinary position approximating that of Pompeius, who would be