If we examine into the nature of these agrarian laws since the death of Julius Caesar, we shall find that they differ in all respects from previous enactments:
1. They were executed at the expense not only of public domains but also of private property.
2. They were the work of one man and not of the entire people.
3. The name of the people was never mentioned in these laws; they were enacted wholly for the profit of the soldiery. Before the distributions made by the triumvirate, the public lands had been absorbed, or at least the fragments remaining were in no way sufficient to recompense the service of the veterans.
Upon the establishment of the empire, the public lands became a vast manorial estate whose over-lord was the emperor himself.
- [Footnote 1: L. Langii, Commentationis de Legibus Antoniis a Cicerone Phil., V, 4, 10; Commemoratis particula prior et posterior; Lipsiae, 1882; Lange, Röm. Alter., III, 499, 503, 526; Marquardt u. Momm., Röm. Alter., IV, 116.]
- [Footnote 2: Lange, Comm., II, 14.]
- [Footnote 3: Cicero, Phil., VI, 5, 14; XI, 6, 13.]
- [Footnote 4: Phil., V, 7, 20.]
- [Footnote 5: Langii, Comm., II, 14.]
- [Footnote 6: Cic., Phil., II, 17, 43; II, 39, 101; III, 9, 22; VIII, 8, 26; Dio Cass., 45, 30; 46, S.]
- [Footnote 7: Cic., Phil., V, 4, 10; V, 19, 53; X, 8, 17; VIII, 15, 31.]
- [Footnote [8]:
Δοσεσι των
Ιταλικων
πολεων
οκτωκαιδεκα
... ωσπερ
αυτοις αντι
της
πολεμιας
δοριλημπτοι
γενομεναι ....
Ουτω μεν τα
καλλιστα
της Ιταλιας
τω στρατω
διεγρεφον.
("Dosesi ton Italikon poleon oktokaideka ... osper autois anti taes polemias dorilaeptoi genomenai.... Outo men ta kallista taes Italias to strato diegrephon.") App., IV, 3.]