Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/258

AGRARIAN LAW. death any one who should propose an agrarian law. understanding by the term an equal division of the soil among all citizens. Now. it would have been strange if the Romans, with whom private property was so sacred, could ever liave been brought to sanction any measure of the kind. It was the German scholars. Heyne. Sa- vigny. and especially Niebuhr, who first explained the true nature and character of the Roman agra- rian laws. There are still some disputed points in this matter; but one thing seems settled — that those laws had no reference to private lands held in absolute property, but to public or State lands.

As the dominion of Rome extended, a portion more or less of each conquered territory was coniiscated to tlie State, and became public do- main. All laws respecting the disposition of these lands were called agrarian laws, which are therefore of various kinds. What caused these laws to be so long mistaken for an interfer- ence with private rights, and excited such oppo- sition to them at the time, was the use which was made of the public domains while unappro- priated. "It was the practice at Rome." says Dr. Arnold, "and doubtless in other States of Italy, to allow the individuals to occupy such lands, and to enjoy all the benefits of them, on condition of paying to the State the tithe of the produce, as an acknowledgment that the State was the proprietor of the land, and the individ- luil merely the occupier. Now, although the land was undoubtedl,y the property of the State, and although the occupiers of it were in relation to the State mere tenants-at-will, yet it is in human nature that a long undisturbed possession should give a feeling of ownership ; the more so as, while the State's claim lay dormant, the pos- sessor was, in fact, proprietor, and the land would thus be repeatedly i)assing by regular sale from one occupier to another."

The State, however, was often obliged to inter- fere with these occupiers of the public lands and to resume its rights. Tlie very idea of a citizen, in ancient times, involved that of a landholder, and when new citizens were to be admitted, each one had to receive his portion out of the unallotted public domain; which was attended, of course, with the ejection of the ten- ants-at-will. It appears, also, that the right to enjoy the public lands in this temporary way was confined to the old burghers or patricians. This, taken in conjunction with the tendency, strong at all times, of larger possessions to swallow up smaller, kept up an ever-increasing number of landless commons, whose destitution and degrada- tion came from time to time to such a pitch that alleviation was necessary to prevent the very dis- solution of the State. It is easy, however, to see what motive the patricians, as a body, had to oppose all such measures, since it was their inter- est, though not their right, to keep the lands unallotted.

The enactment of agrarian laws occasioned some of the most remarkable struggles in the internal history of Rome. Jlost of the kings of Rome are said to have carried an agrarian law; that is, to have divided a portion of the public land among those whom they admitted to the rights of citizenship. About twenty-four years after the expulsion of the Tarquins. the distress of the commons called aloud for remedy, and the consul Spurius Cassius ])roposed an agrarian law for a division of a certain proportion of the public land, and for enforcing the regular pav- ment of the rent or tithe from the occupiers of the remainder. The aristocrac-, however, con- trived to defeat the proposal, and when the year of his consulship was out, Cassius was accused of trying to make himself king, was condemned, scourged, and beheaded, and his house razed to the ground.

The first important agrarian law of a perma- nent natin-e actually passed was that proposed by the tribune Licinius Stolo, and carried, after a struggle of five years, in the year 3(i7 B.C. The provisions of Licinius's bill, or roffation, were as follows: "Every Roman citizen shall be entitled to occupy any portion of the unallotted State land not exceeding 500 jugcra (see Acre), and to feed on the public pasture land any num- ber of cattle not exceeding 100 head of large, or 500 head of small, paying in both cases the usual rates to the public treasury. Whatever portions of the public land beyond 500 jufiera are at pres- ent occupied by individuals shall be taken from them, and distributed among the poorer citizens as absolute property, at the rate of seven jiigera apiece. Occupiers of public land shall also be bound to employ a certain number of freemen as laborers."

This law produced for a time very salutary ! eflfects. But before the year 133 B.C., "when Tibe- rius Gracchus was elected tribune, the Licinian law had been sufi'ered to fall into abeyance: and although vast tracts had been acquired by the Italian, the Punic, and the Greek wars, no regular distribution of land among the desti- tute citizens had taken place for upward of a century. Numerous military colonies had indeed been founded in the conquered districts, and in this way many of the poorer Romans or their allies had been provided for : but there still remained large territories, the property of the State, which, instead of being divided among the poorer members of the State, were entered upon and brought into cultivation by the rich capitalists, many of whom thus came to hold thousands of jur/era. instead of the five hundred allowed by the Licinian law. To a Roman statesman, therefore, looking on the one hand at the wretched pauper population of the meaner streets of Rome, and on the other at the enormous tracts of the public land throughout Italy which the wealthy citizens held in addition to their own private property, the question which would naturally present itself was: Why should not the St;ite. as landlord, resume from these wealthy capitalists, who are her tenants, as much of the public land as may be necessary to provide little farms for these pauper citizens, and so convert them into respectable and independent agriculturists? This question must have presented itself to many; but there were immense difficulties in the way. Not only had long possession of the State lands, and the expenditure of large sums in bringing them into cultivation, given the v.-ealthy tenants a sort of proprietary claim upon them, but in the course of generations, during which estates had been bought, sold, and inherited, the State lands had become so contused with private propertii- that in many cases it was impossible to distinguish between the two. Notwithstanding these difliculties. Tiberius Gracchus had the boldness to propose an agrarian law. to the effect that every father of a family might occupy 500 juyera of the State land for himself and 250 jugcra additional for