AGRARIAN LAWS AGR1COLA. 



61 



various other agrarian laws were attempted, and with 

 various success, according to the nature of their pro- 

 visions and the temper of the times in which they 

 were proposed. One of the most remarkable was 

 that of Rullus, which gave occasion to the cele- 

 brated oration against him by Cicero, who prevailed 

 upon the people to reject the law. From a careful 

 consideration of these laws, and the others of the 

 same kind on which we have not commented, it is 

 apparent, that the whole object of the Roman agrarian 

 laws was, the lands belonging to the state, the public 

 lands or national domains, which, as already observed, 

 were acquired by conquest or treaty, and, we may 

 add also, by confiscations or direct seizures of private 

 estates by different factions, either for lawful or un- 

 lawful causes ; of the last of which we have a well- 

 Tinown example in the time of Sylla's proscriptions. 

 The lands thus claimed by the public became natur- 

 ally a subject of extensive speculation with the 

 wealthy capitalists, both among the nobles and other 

 classes. In our own times, we have seen, during the 

 revolution in France, the confiscation of the lands 

 belonging to the clergy, the nobility, and emigrants, 

 lead to similar results. The sales and purchases of 

 lands, by virtue of the agrarian laws of Rome, under 

 the various complicated circumstances which must 

 ever exist in such cases, and the attempts by the go- 

 vernment to resume or re-grant such as liad been 

 sold, whether by right or by wrong, especially after 

 a purchaser had been long in possession, under a 

 title which he supposed the existing^ laws gave him, 

 naturally occasioned great heat and agitation ; the 

 subject itself being intrinsically one of great difficulty, 

 even when the passions and interests of the parties 

 concerned would permit a calm and deliberate exam- 

 ination of their respective rights. From the com- 

 motions which usually attended the proposal of agra- 

 rian laws, and from a want of exact attention to their 

 true object, there has long been a general impression, 

 among readers of the Roman history, that those laws 

 were always a direct and violent infringement of the 

 rights of private property. Even such men, it has 

 been observed, as Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and 

 Adam Smith, have shared in this misconception of 

 them. This erroneous opinion, however, has lately 

 been exposed by the genius and learning of Niebuhr, 

 in his Roman history, above mentioned, a work which 

 may be said to make an era in that department of 

 learning, and in which he has clearly shown, that 

 the original and professed object of the agrarian laws 

 was the distribution of the public lands only, and not 

 those of private citizens. Or the Licinian law, enacted 

 about 376 B. C., on which all subsequent agrarian 

 laws were modelled, Niebuhr enumerates the follow- 

 ing as among the chief provisions : 1. The limits of 

 the public land shall be accurately defined. Portions 

 of it, which have been encroached on by individuals, 

 shall be restored to the state. 2. Every estate in the 

 public land, not greater than this law allows, which 

 has not been acquired by violence or fraud, and which 

 is not on lease, shall be good against any third per- 

 son. 3. Every' Roman citizen shall be competent 

 to occupy a portion of newly acquired public land, 

 within the limits prescribed by this law, provided this 

 land IH> not divided by law among the citizens, nor 

 granted to a colony. 4. No one shall occupy of the 

 public land more than five hundred jugera, nor pas- 

 ture on the public commons more than a hundred 

 head of large, nor mor* than five hundred head of 

 small stock. 5. Those who occupy the public land 

 shall pay to the state the tithe of the produce of the 

 field, the fifth of the produce of the fruit-tree and 

 the vineyard, and for every head of large stock, 

 and for every head of small stock, yearly. 6. The 

 public lands sliall be fanned by the censors to those 



willing to take them on these terms. The funds 

 hence arising are to be applied to pay the army. 

 The foregoing were the most important permanent 

 provisions of the Licinian law, and, for its immediate 

 effect, it provided that all the public land occupied 

 by individuals, over five hundred jiigera, should be 

 divided by lot in portions of seven jugera to the ple- 

 beians. But we must not hastily infer, as some read- 

 ers of Niebuhr's work have done, that these agrarian 

 laws did not in any manner violate private rights. 

 This would be quite as far from the truth as the pre- 

 vailing opinion already mentioned, which is now ex- 

 ploded. Besides the argument we might derive from 

 the very nature of the case, we have the direct tes- 

 timony of ancient writers to the injustice of such laws, 

 and their violation of private rights. It will suffice 

 to refer to that of Cicero alone, who says, in his Of- 

 fices (lib. 2, c. 21), " Those men who wish to make 

 themselves popular, and who, for that purpose, either 

 attempt agrarian laws, in order to drive people from 

 their possessions, or who maintain that creditors ought 

 to forgive debtors what they owe, undermine the 

 foundations of the state ; they destroy all concord, 

 which cannot exist when money is taken from one 

 man to be given to another ; and they set aside jus- 

 tice, which is always violated when every man is not 

 suffered to retain what is his own" which reflections 

 would not have been called forth, unless the laws in 

 question had directly and plainly violated private 

 rights. The various modes in which those rights 

 might be violated would require a longer discussion, 

 and one which would partake more of legal investi- 

 gation, than might be admissible in the present work. 

 But as the republic of the United States, like that 

 of Rome, has also been much occupied in legislating 

 upon the subject of its public lands, and as laws have 

 been made, in some of the states, bearing a consider- 

 able resemblance, in their operation, to the Roman 

 agrarian laws, which will afford room for a useful and 

 interesting comparison between the laws of the two 

 republics, we shall make some further remarks upon 

 this subject under the head of Public Lands. See 

 Lands, Public. 



AGRICOLA, Cneius Julius ; a Roman consul under 

 the emperor Vespasian, and governor in Britain, the 

 greater part of which he reduced to the dominion of 

 Rome, about 70 A. D. ; distinguished as a statesman 

 and general. His life has been excellently written 

 by his son-in-law, the famous Tacitus, who holds 

 him up as an example of virtue. This life of A., in 

 addition to its excellence as a piece of biography, 

 contains information interesting to the British anti- 

 quarian. 



AGRICOLA, John, properly Schnitter, the son of a 

 tailor at Eisleben, was born in 1492, and called, in 

 his native city, master of Eisleben (tnagister Isleb.), 

 also John Eisleben. He was one of the most active 

 among the theologians who propagated the doctrines 

 of Luther. He studied at WitUmbcrg and Leipsic; 

 was afterwards rector and preacher in his native city, 

 and, in 1526, at the diet of Spire, chaplain of the 

 elector John of Saxony. He subsequently became 

 chaplain to count Albert, of Mansfield, and took a 

 part in the delivery of the confession of Augsburg, 

 and in the signing of the articles of Smalcald. When 

 professor in Wittemberg, whither he went in 1537, 

 he stirred up the Antinomian controversy with Lu- 

 ther and Melancthon. (See dntinomianism.) He 

 afterwards lived at Berlin, where lie died in 1566, 

 after a life of controversy. Besides his theological 

 works, he published a work explaining the common 

 German proverbs. Its patriotic spirit, its strict mo- 

 rality, anil pithy style, place it among the first German 

 prose compositions of the time, at the side of Luther's 

 translation of the Bible. In conjunction with Julius 



