[772] App. l.c. [Greek: Sporios Thorios daemarchon esaegaesato nomon, taen men gaen maeketi sianemein, all' einai ton echonton, kai phorous hyper autaes to daemo katatithesthai, kai tade ta chrhaemata chorein es dianomas.]
[773] If Gracchus's corn law was abolished or modified immediately after his fall, the corn largesses may now have been restored or extended. Cf. p. 306.
[774] Some such guarantee may be inferred from a passage in the lex Agraria (l. 29) Item Latino peregrinoque, quibus M. Livio L. Calpurnio [cos. in eis agris id facere … ex lege plebeive sc(ito) exve foedere licuit.]
[775] Cic. Brut. 36. 136 Sp. Thorius satis valuit in populari genere dicendi, is qui agrum publicum vitiosa et inutili lege vectigali levavit. Cf. de Orat. ii. 70. 284. Appian, on the other hand; makes Sp. Thorius the author of the law preceding this (p. 285). It is possible that Cicero may be mistaken, but, if he is correct, the fragments of the agrarian law which we possess may be those of the lex Thoria, the name given to it by its earlier editors. For a different view see Mommsen in C.I.L. i. pp. 75 ff.
[776] App. Bell Civ. i. 27 [Greek: tous phorous ou poly hysteron dielyse daemarchos heteros.]
[777] The latest years to which it refers are those of the censors of 115 and the consuls of 113, 112 and 111. The harvest and future vintage of 111 are referred to (1. 95), and it has, therefore, been assigned to some period between January 1 and the summer of this year. See Rudorff Das Ackergesetz des Sp. Thorius and cf. Mommsen l.c. It is a curious fact, however, that a law dealing with African land amongst others should have been passed in the first year of active hostilities with Jugurtha. From this point of view the date which marks the close of the Jugurthine war, suggested by Kiene (Bundesgenossenkrieg p. 125), i.e., 106 or 105 B.C., is more probable. But the objection to this view is that the law contains no reference to the censors of 109. See Mommsen l.c.
[778] Ager compascuus. See Mommsen l.c. and Voigt Ueber die staatsrechtliche possessio und den ager compascuus der röm. Republik.
[779] The pastores also must often have been too indefinite a body to make it possible to treat them as joint owners.
[780] The tribune L. Marcius Philippus, when introducing an agrarian law in 104 B.C., made the startling statement "Non esse in civitate duo milia hominum, qui rem haberent" (Cic. de Off. ii. 21, 73). If there was even a minimum of truth in his words, the expression "qui rem haberent" must mean "moneyed men," "people comfortably off."
[781] Mommsen in C.I.L. l.c.