Ager publicus

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The Ager publicus is the Latin language name for the public land of the Roman Republic and Empire. It was usually acquired by expropriation from Rome's enemies.

In the earliest periods of Roman expansion in central Italy, the ager publicus was used for Roman and (after 338 BC) Latin colonies. Later tradition held that as far back as the 400s BC, the Patrician and Plebeian classes disputed the rights of the rich to exploit the land, and in 367 BC two Plebeian Tribunes, Gaius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius Sextinus Lateranus promulgated a law which limited the amount of the ager publicus to be held by any individual to 500 iugera, roughly 350 acres. In the half century following the Battle of Telamon (c. 225 BC), the Roman fully absorbed Cisalpine Gaul, adding huge swathes of land to the ager publicus, land which was more often than not given to new Latin colonies or to small freeholders. In the south of Italy, huge tracts of newly re-incorporated lands remained in the ager publicus, but tended to be leased out to wealthy citizens in return for rents, often ignoring the Laws of 367. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus attempted to address some of these violations in 133 BC, which led to much redistribution of the land. A similar move by his brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 BC failed because of his death the following year. In 111 BC, a new law was passed which allowed individual smallholders to assume ownership of their part of the ager publicus.

By the Imperial period, much of the ager publicus in Italy had been distributed to the veterans of generals such as Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Gaius Iulius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, so that all that remained were the properties of individual cities and common pasture lands. In the provinces, the ager publicus was huge, and came under the ownership of the emperor. However, in reality, almost all of it was under private occupation.

[edit] References

  • Drummond, Andrew, "Licinius Stolo, Gaius. Sextius Sextinus Lateranus, Lucius" in Simon Hornblower & Anthony Spawforth (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd Edition, (Oxford, 1999), pp. 859-60
  • Lewis, Andrew Dominic Edwards, "ager publicus" in Simon Hornblower & Anthony Spawforth (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd Edition, (Oxford, 1999), p. 39
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