Agrarian Laws, the land laws of the ancient Romans. With the name of agrarian laws used to be associated the idea of interference with private property in land, or of an equal division of it. This notion of the agrarian laws of the Romans was not only the popular one, but was received by most scholars. The French Convention, in 1793, passed a law punishing with death any one who should propose an agrarian law, understanding by the term an equal division of the soil among all citizens. Now, it would have been strange if the Romans, with whom private property was so sacred, could ever have been brought to sanction any measure of the kind. It was the German scholars, Heyne, Savigny, and especially Niebuhr, who first explained the true nature and character of the Roman agrarian laws. These laws had no reference to private lands held in absolute property, but to public or state lands.
Like other early communities, ancient Rome had a large ager publicus or public domain, which corresponded to the folkland of early English history. As the Roman dominion extended by the conquest of the surrounding peoples, the public domain increased by the appropriation to the state of considerable portions of their territory. The laws relating to the disposition of this public domain are a most important feature of Roman history, and are called agrarian laws. Instead of being an interference with the rights of private property in land, these laws were for the most part an assertion by the state of its right to dispose of the public lands for the public good.
The state was, however, often obliged to interfere with such occupiers of the public lands, and resume its rights. The very idea of a citizen, in ancient times, involved that of a landholder, and when new citizens were to be admitted, they had each to receive their portion out of the unallotted public domain. But it was chiefly the powerful noble or patrician families who enjoyed the use of the state lands; and in spite of the destitution of the landless commons, these continued to assert their right of occupation, and even of permanent possession. Agrarian laws are associated with the earliest history of the city, but were the occasion of fiercest conflict after the establishment of the republic, when the government of Rome passed into the hands of the leading nobles. In view of the distress of the commons, the consul, Spurius Cassius, proposed (486 B.C.) an agrarian law for a division of a certain proportion of the public land, and for enforcing the regular payment of the rent or tithe from the occupiers of the remainder. The aristocracy, however, defeated the proposal.
The most important agrarian law was that proposed by the tribune, Licinius Stolo, and carried, after a struggle of eleven years, in 367 B.C. Its provisions were as follows: 'Every Roman citizen shall be entitled to occupy any portion of the unallotted state land not exceeding 500 jugera (see ACRE), and to feed on the public pasture-land any number 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 present occupied by individuals, shall be taken from them, and distributed among the poorer citizens as absolute property, and at the rate of seven jugera apiece. Occupiers of public land shall also be bound to employ a certain number of freemen as labourers.'
This law produced for a time very salutary effects. But before the year 133 B.C., when Tiberius Gracchus was elected tribune, the Licinian law had been suffered to fall into abeyance. Numerous military colonies had been founded in the conquered districts; but there still remained large territories, the property of the state, which, instead of being divided among the poorer members of the state, were occupied by wealthy or powerful citizens, many of whom thus came to hold thousands of jugera. The accumulation of latifundia or large estates worked by slave labour, threatened altogether to destroy the free farmers, who had formed the backbone of the state. Under these circumstances, it was felt by many statesmen that reform was necessary in the public interest. Accordingly, Tiberius Gracchus had the boldness to propose an agrarian law to the effect that every father of a family might occupy 500 jugera of the state land for himself, and 250 jugera additional for each of his sons; but that, in every case where this amount was exceeded, the state should resume the surplus, paying the tenant a price for the buildings, &c. which he had been at the expense of erecting on the lands thus lost to him. The recovered lands were then to be distributed among the poor citizens; a clause being inserted in the bill to prevent these citizens from selling the lands thus allotted to them.
There was nothing essentially unreasonable in this proposal, which was, in private at least, approved of by some of the most distinguished men of the time. The energy of Gracchus carried the measure, in spite of the opposition of the aristocratic party, whose vengeance, however, could only be satisfied with the assassination of Gracchus and his brother (see GRACCHUS). The attempts to carry out the 'Sempronian law,' as it was called, were attended with great difficulties, and although not formally repealed, it continued to be evaded and rendered inoperative. Various agrarian laws were subsequently passed, in a spirit directly opposed to the Licinian and Sempronian laws.
Besides the agrarian laws already mentioned, there were others of a more partial and local nature, for the establishment of colonies in particular conquered districts: these naturally met with less opposition. Totally different from the above were those violent appropriations of territory made by the victorious military leaders, in the later times of the republic, in order to reward their soldiers. In these the private rights of the previous occupants were often disregarded. The agrarian laws are only the Roman form of regulations and enactments regarding land, which are to be found in the history of every country. For modern land laws, see LAND.