1 2 History of the English Landed Interest. 



were at work in Euglaiicl, which in Rome were checked by 

 statecraft.^ The famous agrarian laws only applied to the 

 Ager Publicus, and were never intended, as all early historians 

 have erroneously stated, to uphold in perpetuity the equal 

 division of the two jugera amongst the community. The An- 

 archical opinions prevalent during the times of the great French 

 Revolution threw a glaring light on the subject, and Niebuhr's 

 researches have fully shown that these laws referred solely to 

 the Ager Publicus in contradistinction to private possessions. 

 Nor do they seem to have been extended in practice to that 

 form of the Ager Publicus which was established in later times 

 outside the Italian peninsula. 



The ^Ager Puhlkus of re-iDublican Rome consisted principally 

 of a third portion set apart from the lands of conquered nations. 

 No doubt Rome originally possessed, as we know other Italian 

 communities did, an area of waste surrounding her territory 

 over which the citizens had common rights of pasturage. But 

 in historic times this has disappeared, and all that need con- 

 cern us is the economical methods resorted to over that division 

 of the Ager Publicus wrung from the foes of Rome. Over a 

 part of this the State had resigned ownership, but the rest was 

 thrown open for the settlement of the citizens ; and it is this 

 latter portion which should especially engross our attention. 



Land in those times was superabundant and capital scarce, 

 so that the State regarded the settler on the public lands as a 

 national benefactor. ^ It therefore allowed men to take up, free 

 of charge, not only all that they could actually cultivate, but 

 as much as they might have expectation of cultivating. In 

 later times, when it was necessary to obtain some return from 

 the public lands, a charge was levied, in the form of tithes or 

 decumee, on the agricultural portion, paid generally in kind, 

 and scriptura, or an agistment tax for cattle fed on the pasture. 

 The collection of these charges was leased to the publicani [i.e. 

 contractors) for definite sums, and the commission which they 



^ Eticyclo. Brit., sub voc. Agrarian Laws. 



- Smith's Diet, of Antiqu., ed. 1891, sub voc. Ager Publicus. Willeins, 

 Le Droit Publique Romaine. 

 ^ Brims, Fontcs Jnr. liom., p. 413, Hi-ginus § 115. 



