A History of Rome During the Later Republic and Early Principate

by A. H. J. Greenidge

The proposal, which was ushered in by these stirring appeals, seemed at first sight to be of a moderate and somewhat conservative character. It professed to be the renewal of an older law, which had limited the amount of domain land which an individual might possess to five hundred jugera;[331] it professed, that is, to reinforce an injunction which had been persistently disobeyed, for this enactment restricting possession had never been repealed. The extent to which a proposal of this kind is a re-enactment, in the spirit as well as in the letter, depends entirely on the length of time which has elapsed since the original proposal has begun to be violated. A political society, which recognises custom as one of the bases of law, must recognise desuetude as equally valid. A law, which has not been enforced for centuries, would, by the common consent of the courts of such nations as favour progressive legislation, be regarded as no law at all. Again, the age of an ordinance determines its suitability to present conditions. It may be justifiable to revive an enactment that is centuries old; but the revival should not necessarily dignify itself with that name. It must be regarded as a new departure, unless the circumstances of the old and the new enactment can be proved to be approximately the same. Our attempts to judge the Gracchan law by these considerations are baffled by our ignorance of the real date of the previous enactment, the stringency of whose measures he wished to renew. If it was the Licinian law of the middle of the fourth century,[332] this law must have been renewed, or must still have continued to be observed, at a period not very long anterior to the Gracchan proposal; for Cato could point his argument against the declaration of war with Rhodes by an appeal to a provision attributed to this measure[333]—an appeal which would have been pointless, had the provision fallen into that oblivion which persistent neglect of an enactment must bring to all but the professed students of law. We can at least assert that the charge against Gracchus of reviving an enactment so hoary with age as to be absurdly obsolete, is not one of the charges to be found even in those literary records which were most unfriendly to his legislation.[334]

The general principle of the measure was, therefore, the limitation to five hundred jugera of the amount of public land that could be "possessed" by an individual. The very definition of the tenure immediately exempted large portions of the State's domain from the operation of this rule.[335] The Campanian land was leased by the State to individuals, not merely possessed by them as the result of an occupation permitted by the government; it, therefore, fell outside the scope of the measure;[336] but, as it was technically public land and its ownership was vested in the State, it would have been hazardous to presume its exemption; it seems, therefore, to have been specifically excluded from the operation of the bill, and a similar exception was probably made in favour of many other tracts of territory held under a similar tenure.[337] Either Gracchus declined to touch any interest that could properly describe itself as "vested," even though it took merely the form of a leasehold, or he valued the secure and abundant revenue which flowed into the coffers of the State from these domains. There were other lands strictly "public" where the claim of the holders was still stronger, and where dispossession without the fullest compensation must have been regarded as mere robbery. We know from later legislation that respect was had to such lands as the Trientabula, estates which had been granted by the Roman government at a quit rent to its creditors, as security for that portion of a national debt which had never been repaid. It is less certain what happened in the case of lands of which the usufruct alone had been granted to communities of Roman citizens or Latin colonists. Ownership in this case still remained vested in the Roman people, and if the right of usufruct had been granted by law, it could be removed by law. In the case of Latin communities, however, it was probably guaranteed by treaty, which no mere law could touch: and so similar were the conditions of Roman and Latin communities in this particular, that it is probable that the land whose use was conferred on whole communities by these ancient grants, was wholly spared by the Gracchan legislation. In the case of those commons which were possessed by groups of villagers for the purposes of pasturage (ager compascuus),[338] it is not likely that the group was regarded as the unit: and therefore, even in the case of such an aggregate possessing over five hundred jugera, their occupation was probably left undisturbed.

All other possessors must vacate the land which exceeded the prescribed limit. Such an ordinance would have been harsh, had no compensation been allowed, and Gracchus proposed certain amends for the loss sustained. In the first place, the five hundred jugera retained by each possessor were to be increased by half as much again for each son that he might possess: although it seems that the amount retained was not to exceed one thousand jugera.[339] Secondly, the land so secured to existing possessors was not to be held on a merely precarious tenure, and was not to be burdened by the payment of dues to the State; even if ownership was not vested in its holders, they were guaranteed gratuitous undisturbed possession in perpetuity.[340] Thirdly, the bill as originally drafted even suggested some monetary compensation for the land surrendered.[341] This compensation was probably based on a valuation of stock, buildings, and recent permanent improvements, which were to be found on the territory now reverting to the State. It must have applied for the most part only to arable land, and practically amounted to a purchase by the State of items to which it could lay no legal claim; for it was the soil alone, not the buildings on the soil, over which its lordship could properly be asserted.

The object of reclaiming the public land was its future distribution amongst needy citizens. This distribution might have taken either of two forms. Fresh colonies might have been planted, or the acquired land might merely be assigned to settlers who were to belong to the existing political organisations. It was the latter method of simple assignation that Gracchus chose. There was felt to be no particular need for new political creations; for the pacification of Italy seemed to be accomplished, and the new farming class would perform their duty to the State equally well as members of the territory of Rome or of that of the existing municipia and coloniae of Roman citizens. There is some evidence that the new proprietors were not all to be attached to the city of Rome itself, but that many, perhaps most, were to be attributed to the existing colonies and municipia, in the neighbourhood of which their allotments lay.[342] The size of the new allotments which Gracchus projected is not known; it probably varied with the needs and status of the occupier, perhaps with the quality of the land, and there is some indication that the maximum was fixed at thirty jugera.[343] This is an amount that compares favourably with the two, three, seven or ten jugera of similar assignments in earlier times, and is at once a proof of the decrease in the value of land—a decrease which had contributed to the formation of the large estates—and of the large amount of territory which was expected to be reclaimed by the provisions of the new measure. The allotments thus assigned were not, however, to be the freehold property of their recipients. They were, indeed, heritable and to be held on a perfectly secure tenure by the assignees and their descendants; but a revenue was to be paid to the State for their use: and they were to be inalienable—the latter provision being a desperate expedient to check the land-hunger of the capitalist, and to save the new settlers from obedience to the economic tendencies of the times.[344]

It is doubtful whether the social object of Gracchus could have been fully accomplished, had he confined his attention wholly to the existing citizens of Rome. The area of economic distress was wider than the citizen body, and it was the salvation of Italy as a whole that Gracchus had at heart.[345] There is much reason for supposing that some of the Italian allies were to be recipients of the benefits of the measure.[346] In earlier assignations the Latins had not been excluded, and it is probable that at least these, whether members of old communities or of colonies, were intended to have some share in the distribution. There could be no legal hindrance to such participation. With respect to rights in land, the Latins were already on a level with Roman citizens, and their exclusion from the new allotments would have been due to a mere political prejudice which is not characteristic either of Gracchus or his plans.

The ineffectiveness of laws at Rome was due chiefly to the apathy of the executive authority. Gracchus saw clearly that his measure would, like other social efforts of the past, become a mere pious resolution, if its execution were entrusted to the ordinary officials of the State.[347] But a special commission, which should effectually carry out the work which he contemplated, must be of a very unusual kind. The magnitude of the task, and the impossibility of assigning any precise limit of time to its completion, made it essential that the Triumvirate which he established should bear the appearance of a regular but extraordinary magistracy of the State. The three commissioners created by the bill were to be elected annually by the Comitia of the Tribes.[348] Re-election of the same individuals was possible, and the new magistracy was to come to an end only with the completion of its work. Its occupants, perhaps, possessed the Imperium from the date of the first institution of the office; they certainly exercised it from the moment when, as we shall see, their functions of assignment were supplemented by the addition of judicial powers. Gracchus was doubtless led to this new creation purely by the needs of his measure; but he showed to later politicians the possibility of creating a new and powerful magistracy under the guise of an agrarian law.

Such was the measure that seemed to its proposer a reasonable and equitable means of remedying a grave injustice and restoring rather than giving rights to the poor. He might, if he would, have insisted on simple restitution. Had he pressed the letter of the law, not an atom of the public domain need have been left to its present occupiers. The possessor had no rights against the State; he held on sufferance, and technically he might be supposed to be always waiting for his summons to ejectment. To give such people something over and above the limit that the laws had so long prescribed, to give them further a security of tenure for the land retained which amounted almost to complete ownership—were not these unexpected concessions that should be received with gratitude? And even up to the eve of the polling the murmurs of the opposition were sometimes met by appeals to its nobler sentiments. The rich, said Gracchus, if they had the interests of Italy, its future hopes and its unborn generations at heart, should make this land a free gift to the State; they were vexing themselves about small issues and refusing to face the greater problems of the day.[349]

But personal interests can never seem small, and the average man is more concerned with the present than with the future. The opposition was growing in volume day by day, and the murmurs were rising into shrieks. The class immediately threatened must have been numerically small; but they made up in combination and influence what they lacked in numbers. It was always easy to startle the solid commercial world of Rome by the cry of "confiscation". A movement in this direction might have no limits; the socialistic device of a "re-division of land," which had so often thrown the Greek commonwealths into a ferment, was being imported into Roman politics. All the forces of respectability should be allied against this sinister innovation. It is probable that many who propagated these views honestly believed that they exactly fitted the facts of the case. The possessors did indeed know that they were not owners. They were reminded of the fact whenever they purchased the right of occupation from a previous possessor, for such a title could not pass by mancipation; or whenever they sued for the recovery of an estate from which they had been ejected, for they could not make the plea before the praetor that the land was theirs "according to the right of the Quirites," but could rely only on the equitable assistance of the magistrate tendered through the use of the possessory interdicts; or, more frequently still, whenever they paid their dues to the Publicanus, that disinterested middle-man, who had no object in compromising with the possessors, and could seldom have allowed an acre of land to escape his watchful eye. But, in spite of these reminders, there was an impression that the tenure was perfectly secure, and that the State would never again re-assert its lordship in the extreme form of dispensing entirely with its clients. Gracchus might talk of compensation, but was there any guarantee that it would be adequate, and, even supposing material compensation to be possible, what solace was that to outraged feelings? Ancestral homes, and even ancestral tombs, were not grouped on one part of a domain, so that they could be saved by an owner when he retained his five hundred jugera; they were scattered all over the broad acres. Estates that technically belonged to a single man, and were therefore subject to the operation of the law, had practically ceased to confer any benefit on the owner, and were pledged to other purposes. They had been divided as the peculia of his sons, they had been promised as the dowry of his daughters. Again those former laws may have rightly forbidden the occupation of more than a certain proportion of land; but much of the soil now in possession had not been occupied by its present inhabitant; he had bought the right to be there in hard cash from the former tenant. And think of the invested capital! Dowries had been swallowed up in the soil, and the Gracchan law was confiscating personal as well as real property, taking the wife's fortune as well as the husband's. Nay, if the history of the public land were traced, could it not be shown that such value as it now possessed had been given it by its occupiers or their ancestors? The land was not assigned in early times, simply because it was not worth assignation. It was land that had been reclaimed for use, and of this use the authors of its value were now to be deprived.[350]

Such was the plaint of the land-holders, one not devoid of equity and, therefore, awakening a response in the minds of timid and sober business men, who were as yet unaffected by the danger. But some of these found their own personal interests at stake. So good had the tenure seemed, that it had been accepted as security for debt,[351] and the Gracchan attack united for once the usually hostile ranks of mortgagers and mortgagees. The alarm spread from Rome to the outlying municipalities. [352] Even in the city itself a very imperfect view of the scope of the bill was probably taken by the proletariate. We may imagine the distorted form in which it reached the ears of the occupants of the country towns. "Was it true that the land which had been given them in usufruct was to be taken away?" was the type of question asked in the municipia and in the colonies, whether Roman or Latin. The needier members of these towns received the news with very different feelings. They had every chance of sharing in the local division of the spoils, and their voices swelled the chorus of approval with which the poorer classes everywhere received the Gracchan law. Amidst this proletariate certain catch-words—well-remembered fragments of Gracchus's speeches— had begun to be the familiar currency of the day. "The numberless campaigns through which this land has been won," "The iniquity of exclusion from what is really the property of the State," "The disgrace of employing the treacherous slave in place of the free-born citizen"— such was the type of remark with which the Roman working-man or idler now entertained his fellow. All Roman Italy was in a blaze, and there must have been a sense of insecurity and anxiety even in those allied towns whose interest in Roman domain-land was remote. Might not State interests be as lightly violated as individual interests by a sovereign people: and was not the example of Rome almost as perilous as her action?

The opponents of Gracchus had no illusions as to the numerical strength which he could summon to his aid. If the battle were fought to a finish in the Comitia, there could be no doubt as to his triumphant victory. Open opposition could serve no purpose except to show what a remnant it was that was opposing the people's wishes. But there was a means of at least delaying the danger, of staving off the attack as long as Gracchus remained tribune, perhaps of giving the people an opportunity of recovering completely from their delirium. When the college of tribunes moved as a united body, its force was irresistible; but now, as often before, there was some division in its ranks. It was not likely that ten men, drawn from the order of the nobility, should view with equal favour such a radical proposal as that of Tiberius Gracchus. But the popular feeling was so strong that for a time even the unsympathetic members of the board hesitated to protest, and no colleague of Tiberius is known to have opposed the movement in its initial stages. Even the man who was subsequently won over to the capitalist interest hesitated long before taking the formidable step: It was believed, however, that the hesitancy of Marcus Octavius was due more to his personal regard for Tiberius than to respect for the people's wishes.[353] The tribune who was to scotch the obnoxious measure was an excellent instrument for a dignified opposition. He was grave and discreet, a personal friend and intimate of Tiberius.[354] It is true that he was a large holder on the public domain, and that he would suffer by the operation of the new agrarian law. But it was fitting that the landlord class should be represented by a landlord, and, if there had been the least suspicion of sordid motives, it would have been removed by Octavius's refusal to accept private compensation for himself from the slender means of Tiberius Gracchus.[355] The offer itself reads like an insult, but it was probably made in a moment of passionate and unreflecting fervour. Neither the profferer nor the refuser could have regarded it in the light of a bribe. Even when the veto had been pronounced, the daily contest between the two tribunes in the Forum never became a scene of unseemly recrimination. The war of words revolved round the question of principle. Both disputants were at white heat; yet not a word was said by either which conveyed a reflection on character or motive.[356]