Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Agrarian Laws

​ ​288 AGRARIAN LAWS subject connected with the Roman constitution had been successfully investigated and explained, the object and in tention of the agrarian laws were entirely misunderstood by scholars for many centuries after the revival of letters. They were invariably represented as intended to prohibit Roman citizens from holding property in land above a certain fixed amount; and as authorising the division among the poorer citizens of the estates of private indi viduals when these exceeded the prescribed limit; thus legalising a system of plunder which would have been subversive of all social order. No such doctrine had, indeed, been admitted in any well-regulated state, ancient or modern; nor did anything analogous to it appear in the principles or practice of the Roman constitution; yet the expressions used by the ancient authors in reference to these enactments, and the disturbances to which they invariably gave rise, seemed to justify an unfavourable interpretation ; and the opinion, when once propounded, was uncondition ally received by successive generations of learned men, notwithstanding the many embarrassments and contradic tions to which it led. Romulus is represented as dividing his small territory among the members of his infant community at the rate of two jugera (each extending to two-thirds of an English acre) a-piece, as inheritable property. The whole district, however, was not thus assigned; one portion was set apart for the service of the gods and for the royal domains; and another was reserved as common land for pasture. The stock kept on the common land served to eke out a main tenance which two jugera could not otherwise have furnished to a family, and an agistment was paid to the common wealth for the pasturage. It is probable that the same principle prevailed under the regal government, and that successive adjustments of the territory were made. Such a law existed among those of Servius Tullius. The equality of property thus established seems to have been considered as a fundamental principle of the Roman constitution ; and the agrarian laws were regarded as the necessary means of wresting from the large proprietors the possessions which they had illegally acquired. Machiavelli and Montesquieu both participate in this mistake, and are far from condemn ing the agrarian laws, even when taken in the common meaning. The former alleges that the interest of every republic requires that the state should be rich and the citizens poor, and thus justifies the assumed spoliation; while Montesquieu receives it as an historical fact that Romulus adopted the principle of equality in his original distribution of the territory of Rome as the future ground of her strength, and that the tribunitian contests were but attempts to restore the original constitution. Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, b. iv. chap. vii. part i.) assents to the same interpretation, without, however, any expression of approval. The correct interpretation of the agrarian laws must thus be considered as of modern date. Amidst the violence of the French Revolution a scheme for the equal division of the national property was advocated, with great popular favour, by some of the frantic leaders, who sought a sanc tion for their extravagances in precedents drawn from the ancient republics, and particularly from the agrarian laws of the Romans. The subject was thus invested with a new interest, and engaged the attention of Professor Heyne of Gottingen, who in 1793 (Opus. Acad. iv. 350-373) ad dressed to the members of his university a paper in which he successfully combated the opinions which, up till that time, had been entertained respecting them, and showed that their object had been entirely misunderstood. Other writers, as Heeren and Hegewisch, embraced and illustrated his views; but it was reserved for the acuteness and learn ing of Niebuhr fully to develop the theory which had been suggested, and to demonstrate the fact " that the agrarian laws of the Romans were in no case intended to interfere with or affect private property in land, but related exclu sively to the public domain." The theory of Niebuhr was too startling to meet with universal approval. It has accordingly been assailed by Rudorff, Bureau de la Malle (Econ. Polit. des Eomaines), Puchta, and others, who have ingeniously and plausibly supported the opinions formerly maintained; but their arguments fail to produce conviction. (Class. Mus., vol. ii.) The language of Livy passim, when referring to the agrarian laws, is inexplicable unless the interpretation of Niebuhr be adopted : " If," says Dr Arnold, "amongst Niebuhr s countless services to Roman history, any single one may claim our gratitude beyond the rest, it is his explanation of the true nature and character of the- agrarian laws. Twenty- four years have not yet elapsed since he first published it, but it has already overthrown the deeply-rooted false impressions which prevailed universally on the subject; and its truth, like Newton s discoveries in natural science, is not now to be proved, but to be taken as the very corner-stone of all our re searches into the. internal state of the Roman people " (Hist, of Rome, vol. ii.) In almost all countries the legal property of the laud has been originally vested in the sovereign, whether we are to understand under that name a single chief, a particular portion of the nation, or the people at large. In the same manner, the property of all the land in a conquered country was held to be transferred to the sovereign power in the conquering state, and was assumed with more or less rigour as circumstances seemed to require. From the earliest times a portion of the Roman territory was thus regarded as the property of the state, and the profits arising from it were applied to the public service. The public domain (ager publicus) was at first small, but was gradually extended by the right of conquest till it embraced a large portion of the whole peninsula. In this process of extension the sub jugated communities were frequently mulcted of a propor tion of their lands, varying according to the alleged offence or the resistance which they had offered to the arms of the conquerors. Thus the Boii were deprived of one-half of their territory; the Hernici forfeited two-thirds; and the whole of the ager Campanus, the richest district in Italy, was taken from the inhabitants of Capua on the capture of their city after its revolt to Hannibal. The lands thus acquired were disposed of in various ways. A portion of them was frequently sold by auction to meet the immediate necessities of the state, and was thus con veyed in perpetuity to the purchasers. The disposal of the remainder depended on the nature and condition of the land, and its position in reference to the bulk of the com munity- If in good condition and at no great distance from the city, it was frequently assigned, in small allot ments of seven jugera (between 4 and 5 acres), to those of the poorer citizens, whose services in war gave them a claim upon the state; while in hostile districts and on exposed frontiers military colonies were planted, each colonist receiving a fixed quantity of land. In both these cases the land so assigned ceased to form part of the public domain, and became the property of the recipients. In some cases the land, after having been assumed as public property, was allowed to remain in the hands of the former owners, who became the tenants of the state for a fixed period, and paid a certain rent to the Roman exchequer. The preceding remarks refer only to arable or meadow land, vineyards, or olive-gardens, which could be turned to immediate advantage. It is obvious, however, that in a country the greater part of which was acquired by conquest, large districts must have been laid waste, the inhabitants with their houses destroyed, and neither cultivators nor the means of cultivation left. Arrangements of a differ ent description were therefore necessary for lands in this ​A G K A G li 289 position. Wide ranges of country, fit only for pasture, had to be disposed of, and were available to those alone who were able to stock them with flocks and herds, and to provide slaves to attend to and protect their property. Hence it was usual for the state to invite persons possessed of the necessary means to enter upon the occupation of such lands on advantageous terms; an invitation with which the patricians, as being the wealthy class, could alone comply. The ordinary conditions were, that after the land was again brought into cultivation, the occupants should pay as rent one-tenth of the produce of the corn-lands, and one-fifth of the vines and fruit-trees, with a moderate rate per head for sheep and cattle grazing on the public pastures. The lands were not assigned for any definite period; the occupants rere merely tenants at will, liable to extrusion whenever the state found it necessary to employ the land for any other purpose. It was a fundamental principle of Roman law that prescription could not be pleaded against the state; and consequently, though the right of occupancy might not only be transmitted from heir to heir, but might also be sold, no length of time could alter the precarious nature of the tenure by which the lands were held. The state always reserved to itself the power of resuming pos session when it thought fit; and though such resumption might in many cases be attended by individual hardship, it was nevertheless justified by the original contract. Much of the obscurity connected with the Roman agrarian laws has arisen from a misapprehension of the meaning of the words possidere, possessor, and possessio. These terms, when used in a strictly legal sense, denote merely occupancy by a tenant, and never imply an absolute right of property. The act of occupancy was termed usus, and the benefit derived by the state f nidus. "The ager publicun," says Professor Ramsay, "having been ac quired and occupied as explained above, numerous abuses arose in process of time, especially among the tenants belonging to the second class. These being, as we nave said, in the earlier ages, ex clusively patricians, who at the same time monopolised the admin istration of public affairs, they were in the habit of defrauding the state, either by neglecting altogether to pay the stipulated propor tion of the produce, or by paying less tnan was due ; or, finally, by claiming, what was in reality ager publicus, as their own private property ; it being easy, of course, in the absence of all strict super intendence and of scientific surveys, to shift the land-marks which separated public from private property. Meanwhile the deficiencies in the public treasury were made up by heavier taxes ; and the plebeians complained that they were impoverished by new imposts, while the lands belonging to the community, which they had ac quired by their blood, if fairly managed, would yield a sufficient return to meet all demands upon the exchequer ; or, if portioned out in allotments among themselves, afford them the means of sup porting the increased burdens. These complaints, unquestionably founded in justice, were soon vehemently expressed, and were revived from time to time more or less loudly, and enforced more or less earnestly, according to the state of public feeling and the energy of the popular champions. It is true that the wealthier plebeians soon became tenants of the ager publicus as well as the patricians ; but although this circumstance materially strengthened the hands of the occupiers, it did not improve the condition of the poor, or make them less keenlv alive to the injustice of the system against which they protested. >r (Manual of Rom. Antiq. p. 223.) Assuming, then, that the agrarian laws had for their sole object the distribution and management of the public lands (ager publicus), their effect must have been felt in two ways: (1.) In enforcing the regular payment of .rent from the occupants, preventing them from exceeding the limits assigned to them, and compelling the surrender of portions for division among the poorer citizens; and (2.) In insisting upon the immediate application of newly- acquired territories to the establishment of colonies, or its assignment to individuals. It is obvious that the laws first referred to, as involving long-established interests, would necessarily lead to violent contests. The first agrarian law, properly so called, was proposed and passed by Sp. Cassius Viscellinus, when consul, 486 B.C. (Liv. ii. 41, Dionys. viii. 76), but respecting the provisions of this we have no precise information. Cassius was himself a patrician, and we may therefore infer that the law did not encroach upon the just rights of the dominant class to which he belonged. It is not the object of this article to trace in detail the various measures which were pro posed, and the agitations with which they were severally attended. Three such, are recorded during the 4th century B.C. (Liv. iv. 36, 47, 48) ; but by far the most important measure of this class, and that which served as the model of nearly all subsequent agrarian laws, was that carried by C. Licinius Stolo, when tribune of the people, in 367 B.C. (Liv. vi. 42). The provisions of this law were : (1.) That no one should occupy more than 500 jugera (about 333 acres) of the public land ; (2.) That none should have more than 100 large and 500 small cattle grazing on the public pastures ; and (3.) That every occupant of the public lands should employ a certain proportion of free labourers in cultivating it. Niebuhr (vol. iii. p. 11, &c. Eng. transl.) has endeavoured to supply the other details ; but these can be received merely as ingenious, and it may be successful, conjectures. For an able controversy as to this law see Class. Museum, vol. ii. After the excitement occasioned by the passing of the Lieinian law had subsided, two centuries were allowed to pass with only a single interference (Valer. Max. v. 4, 5 ; Polyb. ii. 21) with the occupants of the public lands ; and during that time large additions had been made to the possessions of the state by the confiscations consequent upon the second Punic war. In the meantime tho wealthier families had extended their possessions greatly beyond the limits prescribed by the Lieinian law ; while the small proprietors had disappeared, and the poor continued to increase. In 133 B.C., Tiberius Gracchus proposed and carried a modification of the Lieinian law (Liv. Epit. Iviii. ; Appian. i. 9), which his premature death prevented from being carried into effect ; and a similar result attended the enactment of his brother (Liv. Epit. Ix.) Both were set aside or eluded after the death of Caius. During the period which preceded the subversion of the republic various other lawa were passed for the distribution of the public lands ; but these it is not necessary to enumerate. It may be mentioned, in conclusion, as a significant fact, that the prominent advocates of the agrarian laws, Cassius, Licinius, and the Gracchi, all belonged to the class which would have been injured by their operation nad they led to an undue interference with private property. (G. F.) AGREDA, a town of Spain, in the province of Old Castile, 23 miles N.E. of Soria. It is the chief town of the mountainous district of the same name, and 13 built on the skirts of the Sierra Moncayo. At Agreda the river Queiles is crossed by a fine stone bridge of one arch. Population, 3120. AGRICOLA, CN.EUS JULIUS, was born at Forum Julii, now Frejus, in Provence, 37 A.D., and was in Vespasian s time made lieutenant to Vettius Bolanus in Britain. Upon his return he was ranked by that emperor among the patri cians, and made governor of Aquitania. This post he held for three years ; he then was recalled to Rome, and chosen consul, Britain being assigned to him as his pro vince (78 A.D.) Here he reformed many abuses created by his predecessors, put a stop to extortion, and caused justice to be impartially administered. In the spring of 79 he marched towards the north, where he made new conquests, and ordered forts to be built for the Romans to winter in. He spent the following winter in concerting schemes to bring the Britons to conform to the Roman customs. He thought tho best way of diverting them from their warlike propensities was to soften their rough manners by proposing to them new kinds of pleasure, and inspiring them with a desire of imitating the Roman man ners. He encouraged the erection of magnificent temples, porticoes, baths, and other fine buildings. The British nobles at length had their sons educated ; and they who before had the utmost aversion to the Roman language now began to study it with great assiduity. They likewise adopted the Roman dress ; and, as Tacitus observes, they were brought to consider those things as marks of polite ness which were only so many badges of slavery. Agri- cola, in his third campaign, advanced as far as the Solway; and in his fourth he subdued the nations betwixt the Sol- way and the friths of Forth and Clyde, into which the rivers Bodotria and Glotta discharged themselves ; and here he built a chain of fortresses to check the nations yet I. - 37