198 The ager Campanus 



working farmers in Sicily. In the half-century or so before the time 

 of Verres we hear 1 of free Sicilians who were sorely disturbed by the 

 great servile rebellions and even driven to make common cause with 

 the insurgent slaves. Some such ' small men ' were evidently still to 

 be found wedged in among the big plantations. 



Another important passage occurs in the artful speech against the 

 agrarian bill of Rullus. It refers to the ager Campanus, on the value 

 of which as a public asset 2 Cicero insists. This exceptionally fertile 

 district was, and had long been, let by the state to cultivating tenants, 

 whose regularly-paid rents were one of the safest items in the Roman 

 budget. These farms were no latifundia, but apparently of moderate 

 size, such that thrifty farmers could make a good living in this favoured 

 land. With the various political 3 changes, carrying with them distur- 

 bances of occupancy, caused by wars in the past, we are not here 

 concerned. Cicero declares that one aim of the bill was the assignation 

 of this district to new freeholders, which meant that the state treasury 

 would lose a sure source of revenue. This, in the interest of the aristo- 

 cratic party, he was opposing, and undoubtedly misrepresented facts 

 whenever it suited his purpose. In matters of this kind, he says, the 

 cry is often raised 4 that it is not right for lands to lie depopulated 

 with no freemen left to till them. This no doubt refers to the Gracchan 

 programme for revival of the peasant farmers. Cicero declares that 

 such a cry is irrelevant to the present issue, for the effect of the bill 

 will be to turn out the excellent sitting tenants 5 only to make room 

 for new men, the dependants and tools of a political clique. The reason 

 why, after the fall of Capua in the second Punic war, that city was 

 deprived of all corporate existence, and yet the houses were left stand- 

 ing, was this : the menace of a disloyal Capua had to be removed, but 

 a town-centre of some sort could not be dispensed with. For market- 

 ing, for storage 6 of produce, the farmers must have some place of 

 common resort: and when weary with working on their farms they 

 would find the town homesteads a welcome accommodation. Allowing 

 for rhetorical colouring in the interests of his case, perhaps we may 

 take it from Cicero that a fair number of practical working farmers 



1 Diodorus fragm xxxiv 2 48, xxxvi 5 6. 



2 de lege agr II 80-3. 



3 See Beloch Campanien pp 304-6. 



4 de lege agr II 84 agros desertos a plebe atque a cultura hominum liberorum esse non 

 oportere. 



6 genus... optimorum et aratorum et militum...illi miseri, nati in Hits agris et educati, 

 glaebis subigendis exercitati . . ,&x,. 



6 de lege agr II 88-9 locus comportandis condendisquefructibus, ut aratores cultu agronim 

 defessi urbis domicihis uterentur . . .receptaculum aratorum, nundinas rusticorum, cellam atqite 

 horreum Campani agri...z\.z. 



