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 a confiscation. 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 300 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 Borne 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 Kome, 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 Kome 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 



