The first important agrarian law of a perma nent nature actually passed was that proposed by the tribune Licinins Stolo, and carried, after a struggle of five years, in the year 367 B.C. The provisions of Licinius's bill, or rogation, were as follows: "Every Roman citizen shall be entitled to occupy any portion of the unallotted State land not exceeding 500 jugera (see Act and to feed on the public pasture land any num ber of cattle not exceeding 100 head of large, or 500 head of small, paying in both cases the usual rates to the public treasury. Whatever portions of the public land beyond 500 jugera are at pres ent occupied by individuals shall be taken from them, and distributed among the poorer citizens as absolute property, at the rate of seven jugera apiece. Occupiers of public land shall also be bound to employ a certain number of freemen as laborers." This law produced for a time very salutary effects. But before the year 133 B.C.. when Tibe rius Gracchus was elected tribnne, the Licinian law had been suffered to fall into abeyance; and although vast tracts had been acquired by the Italian, the Punic. and the Greek wars, no regular distribution of land among the desti tute citizens had taken place for upward of a century. Numerous military colonies had in deed been founded in the conquered districts, and in this way many of the poorer Romans or their allies had been provided for; but there still remained large territories, the property of the State, which, instead of being divided among the poorer members of the State, were entered upon and brought into cultivation by the rich capitalists, many of whom thus came to hold thousands of jugera, instead of the five hundred allowed by the Licinian law. To a Roman statesman, therefore, looking on the one hand at the wretched pauper population of the meaner streets of Rome, and on the other at the enor mous tracts of the public land throughout Italy which the wealthy citizens held in addition to their own private property, the question which would naturally present itself was: Why should not the State, as landlord, resume from these wealthy capitalists, who are her tenants, as much of the public land as may be necessary to provide little farms for these pauper citizens, and so convert them into respectable and independent agri•niturists? This question /mist have pre sented itself to many; but there were immense difficulties in the way. Not only had long pos session of the State lands, and the expenditure of large sums in bringing them into cultivation, given the wealthy tenants a sort of proprietary claim upon them. but in the course of genera
tions, during which estates had been bought, sold, and inherited, the State lands had become so confused with private property that in many cases it was impossible to distinguish between the two. Notwithstanding, these difficulties, Ti berius Gracchus had the boldness to propose an agrarian law, to the effect that every father of a family might occupy 500 jullera of the State land for himself and 250 jugera additional for each of his sons; hut that, in every case where this amount was exceeded, the State re sume the surplus, paying the tenant a price for the buildings, etc., which he had been at the expense of erecting on the lands thus lost to him. The recovered lands were then to be among the poor citizens; a anise being inserted in the bill to prevent these citizens selling the lands thus allotted to them, as many of them would have been apt to do.
According to the laws and constitution of Rome, there was nothing essentially MO le-t in this proposal, whieh was. in private. at least, approved of by some of the most distinguished men of the time. The energy of Tiberius Grae chits carried the measure, in spite of the oppo sition of the aristocratic party, to whose enmity he fell a 'Victim. His work was taken up a decade later by his brother Gains. who also met a violent death. (See Gnvecurs.) The at tempts to carry out the "Sempronian as it was called (front the Milne of the f/ens to which the Gracebi belonged), were attended with great difficulties, and although not formally repealed, it continued to be evaded and rendered inopera tive. Various agrarian laws were subsequently passed, some by the victorious aristocratic party, in a spirit directly opposed to the Licinian and Sempronian laws.
Besides agrarian laws having for their object the division among the commons of piddle lands usurped by the nobles, there were others of a more partial and local nature, for the establish ment of colonies in particular conquered dis tricts; these naturally met with less opposition. Still more different were those violent appropria tions of territory made by the victorious military leaders in the later times of the Republic, in order to reward their soldiers and to establish exclusively military colonies. In these the pri vate rights of the previous occupants were often disregarded.