The first proposition of an Agrarian law, according to Livy, was that of the consul Spurius Cassius, B.C. 484, a mea sure, as Livy observes, which was never proposed up to his time (the period of Augustus) without exciting the greatest commotion. The object of this law was to give to the Latins half of the lands which had been taken from the Hernici, and the other half to the plebes. He also proposed to divide among the plebes a portion of the public land, which was possessed by the patricians. The mea sure of Cassius does not appear to have been carried, and after the expiration of his office, he was tried, condemned, and put to death, on some charge of treason able designs, and of aspiring to the kingly power. The circumstances of his trial and death were variously reported by various authorities. (Livy, ii. 41.) Dio nysius (Antig. Born. viii. 76) says that the sr nate stopped the agitation of Cas sius by a measure of their own. A Con sultum was passed to the effect that ten men of consular rank should be appointed to ascertain the boundaries of the public land, and to determine how much should be let and how much distributed among the plebes ; it was further provided that if the Isopolite and allied stags should henceforth aid the Romans in making any further acquisitions of land, they should have a portion of it. The Senatus Con sultum being proposed to the popular assembly (Rhos), whatever that body may here mean, stopped the agitation of Cassius. This statement is precise enough and consistent with all that we know of the history of the Agrarian laws ; nor does its historical value seem to be much impaired by the remarks of Niebuhr upon it (Licinian Rogations, vol, iii. note 12).
At length, in the year B.C. 975, the tribunes C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius Drought forward among other measures sn Agrarian law, which after much opposition was carried in the year B.C.
365. The measures of Licinius and his colleague are generally spoken of under the name.of the Licinian Rogations. The provisions of this law are not very ex actly known, but the principal part of them may be collected from Livy (vi, 35), Plutarch (Till. Gracchus, 8), and Appian (Civil Wars, 1. 8). No person was henceforth to occupy more than five hundred jugera of public land for cul tivation or planting ; and every citizen was qualified to hold to that amount, at least of public land acquired subsequently to the passing of the law. It was also enacted that every citizen might feed one hundred head of large cattle and five hundred head of small cattle on the public pastures. Any person who ex ceeded the limits prescribed by the law was liable to be fined by the plebeian tediles, and to be ejected from the land which he occupied illegally. The rent payable to the state on arable land was a tenth of the produce, and that on lands planted with fruit or other trees was a fifth. This is not mentioned by Appian as a provision of that law which limited the possessions to five hundred jugera, but as an old rule ; but if the law of Licinius contained nothing against it, this provision would of course remain in force. A fixed sum was also paid, according to the old rule, for each head of small and large cattle that was kept on the publits pastures.
The rent was farmed or sold for a lua trum, that is, five years, to the highest bidder. There was anotherprevision mentioned by Appian as part of the law which limited possession to five hundred jugera, which is very singular. To ren der it more intelligible, the whole passage should be taken together, which is this : " It was enacted that no man should have more of this laud (public land) than five hundred jugera, nor feed more than hundred large and five hundred small cattle ; and for these purposes the law required them to have a number of free men, who were to watch what was going on and to inform." * Niebuhr simply expresses the last enactment thus : "The possessors of the public laud are obliged to employ free men as field la bourers in a certain proportion to the extent of their possessions." Nothing is said as to any assignment of lands to the plebeians by the law of Stolo, though Niebuhr adds the following as one of the clauses of the law : "Whatever portions of the public land persons may at present possess above five hundred jugers, either m fields or plantations, shall be assigned to all the plebeians in lots of seven jugers as absolute property." He observes in a note : " No historian, it is true, speaks of this assignment, but it must have been made;" and then follow some reasons why it must have been made, part of which are good to show that it was not made. But though Livy does not speak of assignments of land as being made to the Plebes, such assignment is mentioned as one of the objects of his laws in the speech of Licinius (Livy, vi. 39) and of his opponent Appius Claudius (vi. 41).
About two hundred and thirty years after the passing of the Licinian law, the tribune Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, who was of a plebeian but noble family, brought forward his Agrarian law, n.c. 133. The same complaints were still made as in the time of Licinius: there was general poverty, diminished popula tion, and a great number of servile labourers. Accordingly he proposed that the Licinian law as to the five hundred jugera should be renewed or confirmed, which implies, not perhaps that the law had been repealed, but at least that it had fallen into disuse : but he proposed to allow a man to hold two hundred and fifty jugera, in addition to the five hun dred, for each son that he had ; though this must have been limited to two sons, as Niebuhr observes, inasmuch as one thousand jugera was the limit which a man was allowed to hold. The land that remained after this settlement was to be distributed by commissioners among the poor. His proposed law also contained a clause that the poor should not alienate their allotments. This Agrarian law only applied to the Roman public lands in Apulia, Samnium, and other parts of Italy, which were in large masses: it did not affect the public lands which had already been assigned to individuals in ownerships or sold. Nor did it comprise the land of Capua, which had been made public in the war against Hannibal, nor the Stellatis Ager : these fertile tracts were reserved as a valuable public property, and were not touched by any Agrarian law before that of C. Julius Caesar.