Working of the new policy 177 



occasions resorted to, for no abolition of the old liability to service had 

 taken place: but voluntary enlistment of young men, and their conver- 

 sion into professional soldiers by technical training, was henceforth the 

 normal method of forming Roman armies. Armies were kept on foot 

 for long campaigns, and the problem of their peaceful disbandment was 

 one of the most serious difficulties of the revolutionary age. The treasury 

 had no large income to spend on money-pensions, so the demand 

 for allotments of land became a regular accompaniment of demobili- 

 zation. Meanwhile the desperate condition of landlords in important 

 districts, and the danger from the slave-gangs, were forcibly illustrated 

 in the rising under Spartacus (73-1 BC) and the Catilinarian conspiracy. 

 It is unfortunate that the scope of the land-bill of Rullus 1 in 63, defeated 

 by Cicero, is uncertain, and the effect of Caesar's land-law of 59 hardly 

 less so. But one thing seems clear. In default of sufficient lands suit- 

 able for allotment, legislators were driven to propose the resumption 

 of the rich Campanian domain. This public estate had long been let 

 to tenants, real farmers, in small holdings; and the rents therefrom 

 were one of the safest sources of public income. To disturb good 

 tenants, and give the best land in Italy to untried men as owners, was 

 surely a bad business. It shews to what straits rulers were driven to 

 find land for distribution. To enter into the details of the various land- 

 allotments between the abortive proposal of Rullus and the final 

 settlement of Octavian would be out of place here. But it is well to 

 note that the plan of purchasing private land for pension-allotments, 

 proposed in the bill of Rullus, was actually carried out by the new 

 Emperor and proudly recorded 2 by him in his famous record of the 

 achievements of his life. The violent transfer of landed properties from 

 present holders to discharged soldiers of the triumviral armies had 

 evidently been both an economic failure and a political evil. To pay 

 for estates taken for purpose of distribution was a notable step towards 

 restoration of legality and public confidence. Whether it immediately 

 brought about a revival of agriculture on a sound footing is a question 

 on which opinions may justifiably differ. Much will depend on the view 

 taken by this or that inquirer of the evidence of Varro and the Augus- 

 tan poets Horace and Vergil. 



(NOTE In Prendergast's Cronrwellian Settlement of Ireland (ed 2, 1870), chapter iva, 

 much interesting matter may be found. Cruel expulsions, corrupt influences, and the sale of 

 their lots by soldiers to officers, their frequent failure as cultivators, etc, stand out clearly. 

 The analogy to the Roman cases must of course not be too closely pressed, as the conditions % 

 were not identical. 



1 See the important paper by Dr E G Hardy Journ Phil 1913. 



2 Monum Ancyr in 22 [cap xvi]. 



H. A. 12 



