524 Transactions. —Miscellaneous. 
Gracchus determined to enforce the Licinian law, which had fallen into 
abeyance. ‘Thereupon he passed the following law, called after him the 
Sempronian Law:— 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, where this amount was exceeded, the State was to resume 
the surplus, paying, however, for the buildings erected thereon. And this 
surplus was to be distributed among the poorer citizens, a clause being 
inserted in the Bill to prevent their selling the land, as many of them 
would have done.” 
But the owners of the lands objected. They had taken them up or 
bought them from others, improved them, made them their homesteads. 
At this time, the Latifundia cannot be regarded as excessively large estates ; 
and the owners naturally objected to aconfiscation. In subsequent centuries 
the estates did increase in size under this system of State ownership, until 
the system thoroughly undermined the independence of the citizens. But, 
at the time of Tib. Semp. Gracchus, the estates were not excessively large; so 
when he stood again for the tribuneship, fierce party strife shook the State, 
and he and 800 others were slain. The Sempronian Law was constantly 
evaded and rendered inoperative. Tiberius Semp. Gracchus was a good, 
moderate, and conciliatory man. 
We can fully imagine that the inhabitants of the towns stood no chance 
in a contest of this kind with the sturdy agriculturists fighting for their 
homesteads. It is a pity that the idea of a compulsory subdivision did not 
enter the plans of Tib. Gracchus. But that could not be, for at that 
time a father possessed the power of life and death over his children. The 
world had not then emerged from slavery. 
Thus, then, in Rome we find that the State had little power, and the 
people became enslaved. (That is to say, the State had little power to 
deal with their own leaseholds after they had been once granted. This is 
the weak point in the Land Nationalization Scheme. It is easy to lease 
the public land once, but it is found almost impossible for the State to take 
re-possession and re-lease the land as a private owner would do). Yet we 
must not overlook the harsh debtor and creditor laws of Rome, which also 
conduced to this slavery. These had a greater effect ‘than the land laws. 
Under our own Norman feudal laws, too, the free English people became 
villeins and serfs. 
So that we see that while China, India, and Egypt are still pure State 
lands, the system in Greece and Rome failed, and that the north-western 
nations of Europe improved upon it, by individualization ; carrying such 
improvement with them, subject to the feudal law of primogeniture, in 
their migrations to America and Australasia. Had they carried with them 
