The Historians' History of the World 05

It was when Gracchus was about thirty years old (137 B.C.) that he served as quæstor in Spain. Before this, when he travelled through Etruria to join the army, he had noted her broad lands tilled not by free yeomen as of old, but by slaves. Soon after this the Slave War broke out. He spoke his sentiments freely, and public opinion designated him as the man who was to undertake the thankless office of reformer. In all places of public resort the walls were covered with inscriptions calling on Gracchus to vindicate the rights of all Roman citizens to a share in the state lands. He presented himself as a candidate for the tribunate, and was elected.

On December 10th, 134 B.C., he entered upon office. He had already prepared men for his projected legislation by eloquent speeches, in which he compared the present state of Italy with her olden time, deplored the decay of her yeomen and farmers, and the lack of freemen to serve in the legions. All his arguments pointed towards some measures for restoring the class of small landed proprietors who were dwindling fast away.

[133 B.C.]

In a short time his plan was matured and his bill brought forward. He proposed to revise the Licinian law of 364 B.C., by which it was enacted that no head of a family should hold more than five hundred jugera (nearly 320 acres) of the public land; but to render the rule less stringent, he added that every son of the family might, on becoming his own master, hold half that quantity in addition.[74] Whoever was in possession of more was to give up the excess at once to the state; but to obviate complaints of injustice, he proposed that those who gave up possession should be entitled to a fair compensation for any improvements they had made during the term of their possession. All public lands were to be vested in three commissioners (triumviri), who were to be elected by the tribes. Their business was to distribute the public lands to all citizens in needy circumstances, and to prevent lands so distributed being again absorbed into the estates of the rich land owners; the sale of the new allotments was altogether prohibited.

The greater part of these public lands had fallen into the hands of the rich land owners. They had held them, on payment of a small yearly rent, for generations; and many of these persons had forgotten perhaps that their possession could be disturbed. After the first surprise was over, the voices of these land holders began to be heard; but as yet the majority of the senate showed no disfavour to the law of Gracchus. The persons interested alleged that the measure, though it pretended only to interfere with state lands, did in fact interfere with the rights of private property; for these lands were held on public lease and had been made matters of purchase and sale, moneys were secured on them for the benefit of widows and orphans, tombs had been erected on them: if this law passed, no man’s land could be called his own.

If Gracchus had proposed a forcible and immediate resumption of all state lands, without compensation for moneys spent on them, these arguments would have had more weight. Rights arise by prescription; and if the state had for a long course of time tacitly recognised a right of private property in these lands, it would have been a manifest injustice thus abruptly to resume possession. But the Licinian law was evidence that the state claimed a right to interfere with the tenure of the public lands. That the Romans felt no doubt about the right is shown by the fact that in framing his law Tiberius was assisted by his father-in-law App. Claudius, the chief of the senate, and by P. Mucius Scævola, consul of the year.

It was certain that the law would be carried in all the country tribes, because it was precisely in these tribes that the strength of Gracchus lay, and all his arguments show that he knew it. It was to the country people, who had lost or were afraid of losing their little farms, that he spoke.b

A few specimens of the fervent eloquence of Tiberius still remain in the fragments[75] quoted in Plutarche and Appian.g Plutarch describes the present event as follows: