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The Lex Sempronia agraria was a Roman agricultural law (lex agraria) proposed by the plebeian tribuneTiberius Gracchus. Passed in 133 BC, it created a three-man commission to allot state-owned land across Italy to poor citizens.[1] The lands so given came with some conditions, such as payment of a vectigal (a rent or property tax) and registration in the census, for purposes of conscription.
The purpose of the law was to halt a perceived decline in the number of free citizens. Such depopulation would have hollowed out the pool of Roman conscripts and was attributed to the emergence of large slave-run estates. Modern archaeology suggests, however, that the decline in the free population (as reported in Roman censuses) emerged more from a desire to evade conscription than from an actual decline in the population.
Regardless, the commission was successful in distributing a large amount of land, some of which is archaeologically attested in boundary stones. After 129 BC, however, the commission was stripped of land survey jurisdiction, which was necessary to determine which lands could be allocated. Its work therefore largely stalled until Gaius Gracchus, as plebeian tribune in 123–22 BC, re-enacted the law with explicit surveying jurisdiction. Work continued under various agrarian laws through the following decades. But the activities of the commission and its successors likely contributed to the outbreak of the Social War since the public land being distributed was already being used by Rome's subject allied communities and, when allotted, had to be taken from them.
When Tiberius Gracchus became a tribune in the late 130s BC, the Roman population faced a number of economic issues: wage labour was scarce due to a dearth of public building, grain prices were likely high due to the ongoing slave rebellion in Sicily, population growth meant there were more mouths to feed, and declining willingness to serve on long army campaigns had increased migration to the cities.[2] Altogether, these trends reduced urban workers' incomes, driving them closer to subsistence. Most of the population remained outside the cities in the countryside but similar issues plagued the rural poor as well. The end of colonisation projects caused an oversupply of rural free labour, driving down wages.[2]
The Roman state owned a large amount of public land (ager publicus) acquired from conquest, and there were two competing uses - to provide revenue to the state and to provide relief to the poorer citizens.[3] The state, however, did not exploit this land heavily. While it was theoretically Roman property, Rome had allowed allies to work and enjoy it after its de jure seizure.[4] In the traditional story, derived from Appian and Plutarch (two historians writing during the imperial period), the ager publicus had been occupied by rich landowners operating large latifundia staffed largely by slaves, driving poor farmers into destitution between military service and competition with slave labour.[5] This narrative is both incompatible with two republican censuses[6] and the ancient necessity for productive lands to be close to market.[7] Illegal occupation of the ager publicus for commercial production was unlikely due to the ager's inaccessibility by urban markets; if displacement consistent with the ancient sources happened, it likely occurred only in farmlands areas close to Rome.[8] Slave-staffed estates, the driver for displacement in that narrative, also did not become common until the first century BC, after the lex Sempronia agraria.[9]
紀元前2世紀までのイタリアの人口増加は、 土地の再分配に対する要求の高まりと食糧供給への圧力につながった可能性が高い。[ 10 ]分割相続のため、小規模農地は家族を養うには小さすぎる区画に分割された。[ 11 ]これにより農民の不完全雇用が生じた。土地需要が高かったローマ近郊では、農民は土地を裕福な人々に売却し、収穫期には主要な雇用源であった賃金労働に従事した。[ 12 ]農民の中には、公共事業、移動労働、食料販売などの都市での賃金労働を見つけた者もいた。しかし、 紀元前140年以降、記念碑的な建築プロジェクトが中断されたことで賃金が下落し、彼らの物質的な生活水準は低下した。[ 13 ]
代替の職業としては軍隊があったが、 紀元前130年代後半には軍隊生活は困難になっていた。2世紀初頭の軍隊による略奪は終わり、ローマは代わりにヒスパニアで血なまぐさい、利益のない戦争に従事していた。当時の記録には、脱走、徴兵忌避、士気の低下が蔓延していたことが数多くある。[ 14 ]最近の国勢調査ではローマの人口、ひいては徴兵対象市民の数が減少したと記録されているが、現代の考古学ではこの見かけ上の減少は錯覚であったことが示されている。[ 15 ]当時、スペインでの兵役を拒否することと、国勢調査登録を避けることによる徴兵忌避を結びつける者はいなかった。[ 16 ]ローマ人は最終的に紀元前125/4年の国勢調査で過少計上を修正し 、人口が実際に増加していたことを示した。[ 17 ]
Due to the substantial demand among the poor for land redistribution Tiberius enjoyed unprecedented levels of popularity in bringing the matter before the assemblies.[18][19] Tiberius' unwillingness to stand aside or compromise broke with political norms. A similar land reform proposal by Gaius Laelius Sapiens during his consulship in 140 BC was withdrawn after bitter opposition and its defeat in the senate.[20][21]
Moreover, victory on the matter of the lex agraria would have, for Tiberius, won him considerable support among the people and buttressed his prospects for higher office. His refusals to compromise or withdraw his proposals led to suspicion among the elite that the bill was for his personal and familial political interests instead of his stated objectives.[22] The complex motives of Tiberius and his ally and father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher were not limited to pro-natalist policymaking and its concomitant effects for army levies; they also may have calculated that land distributions would co-opt the loyalties of the soon-to-return Numantine war veterans. Passage would have served to balance against Aemilianus' political influence – he was the commander in the final campaign of the Numantine war – after his expected victory.[23][24]
Tiberius believed that a previous law – commonly identified by modern scholars as the Licinio-Sextian rogations of the early fourth century BC[25] – had limited the amount of public land that any person could hold to 500 jugera (approximately 120 hectares).[26][27] This legal maximum on land holdings, if it actually existed,[28] was largely ignored and many people possessed far more than the limit,[29] including Marcus Octavius, also serving as tribune in that year, and Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, then pontifex maximus.[30]
The accounts of Appian and Plutarch are largely based on Tiberius and his supporters' political rhetoric and argumentation. Modern scholars have argued that those arguments were tendentious and did not reflect contemporaneous conditions objectively.[31] Source difficulties also emerge, inasmuch as some modern scholars also doubt whether the Gracchan narratives in Plutarch and Appian are based more on tragic dramas about their deaths rather than credible historical narratives.[32]
According to Plutarch, referencing a pamphlet attributed to Tiberius' brother Gaius, Tiberius developed his measures after being moved by the dearth of free Italians tilling the fields in Etruria on the march to the Numantine war.[33] The poor, without land, became unavailable for military service and stopped reproducing, causing population decline.[34] A quote from Tiberius Gracchus is preserved in Plutarch:
The wild beasts that roam over Italy... have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in; but the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light, indeed, but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children. And it is with lying lips that their [commanders] exhort the soldiers in their battles to defend sepulchres and shrines from the enemy; for not a man of them has an hereditary altar, not one of all these many Romans an ancestral tomb, but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury, and though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own.[35]
To resolve what he identified as the problem, Tiberius proposed a lex agraria to enforce a limit on the amount of public land that one person could hold; surplus land would then be transferred into the hands of poor Roman citizens.[36] Benefitting the poor was not the only goal of his legislation: Tiberius also intended to reduce the level of inflammation in the city by moving the poor into the countryside[37] while also endowing those people with the necessary land to meet army property qualifications and reverse apparent population decline.[38]
This agrarian policy, focusing on people with agricultural skills, led to much of his support coming from the poor rural plebs rather than the plebs in the city.[39] Thousands reportedly flooded in from the countryside to support Tiberius and his programme.[40] Tiberius was not, however, alone in his views: he was supported by one of the consuls for the year (the jurist Publius Mucius Scaevola), his father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher (who had served as consul for 143 BC), Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus (elected pontifex maximus the next year), and other younger, junior senators.[41][42]
The amount of land each beneficiary would have received is unknown. Thirty jugera is often suggested. That amount, however, is greatly in excess of the regular amount of land distributed viritim in colonisation programmes (only 10 jugera).[43] There were also restrictions on alienation and possibly rents (a vectigal).[44] While these conditions place the private ownership of the distributed land into question, and therefore also question whether an owner could be registered in the census as owning that land. Later laws indicate that it was legally treated as private with tenure maintained given payment of the vectigal. An unpaid vectigal would trigger reverter to the state, which would then be able to redistribute it again.[45]
The law would also create a commission, staffed following elections, by Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Gaius Gracchus, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius Pulcher, to survey land and determine which illegally occupied land was to be seized for redistribution.[46]
Those possessing more than 500 jugera of land opposed the law strongly. While previous laws had fined occupation in excess of the limit, those fines were rarely enforced and the land possession itself was not disturbed. This led them to invest into improvements to that land, with some protests that the land was part of wives' dowries or the site of family tombs. Tiberius Gracchus' law would seize the land explicitly, a novelty.[47] According to Plutarch, Tiberius initially proposed compensation, but the compromise offer was withdrawn after opposition; his later proposal was to compensate by securing tenure over a cap of 500 jugera (with an additional 250 jugera for up to two sons).[48]
The exact legislative history of the bill is disputed: Appian and Plutarch's accounts of the bill's passage differ considerably.[49] At a broad level, the bill was proposed before the concilium plebis; Tiberius forwent the approval of the senate before a bill was to be introduced. In response, the senate secured one of his tribunician colleagues to veto the proceedings.[20] Both versions agree on obstruction from Marcus Octavius, one of the other tribunes, and his deposition.[50]
In Plutarch's account, Tiberius proposes a bill with various concessions, which is then vetoed by Marcus Octavius, one of the other tribunes. In response, he withdraws the bill and removes the concessions. This latter bill is the one debated heavily in the forum. Tiberius tries various tactics to induce Octavius to abandon his opposition: offering him a bribe and shutting down the Roman treasury, and thereby, most government business. When the Assembly eventually assembles to vote, a veto is presumed. They attempt to adjudicate the matter in the senate, to no avail, and the Assembly votes to depose Octavius from office when he maintains his veto. Following the deposition, Tiberius' freedmen drag Octavius from the Assembly and the Assembly passes the bill.[49][51]
In Appian's account, however, there is only one bill: opposition from Octavius appears only at the final vote, leading to the dispute to be taken to the senate, and then Octavius' deposition followed by the bill's passage.[52] Prior to the vote, Tiberius gives a number of speeches, in which Appian asserts that Tiberius passed the bill on behalf of all Italians.[50]
紀元前133年にティベリウスが平民護民官に選出された当時、ローマの政治文化は安定しており、交渉、同僚の圧力、上司への敬意を通じて解決策を見出すことができた。[ 53 ] [ 54 ]成文化されていないローマ憲法の柔軟性のため、ティベリウスとオクタウィウスの間の政治的紛争は明確な解決策を欠いていた。政務官が協力して働くときに最も機能するこの制度は、政務官が既存の規範に反して権限の法的範囲を完全に悪用したときに崩壊した。[ 55 ]両者とも護民官であったため、平民とその利益を代表していた。オクタウィウスは自分の支持者に対して拒否権を維持することを主張し、ティベリウスは憲法に反してオクタウィウスを罷免することで対応した。[ 56 ] [ 57 ]ティベリウスは、元老院の同意なしに農業法を持ち込むことで、憲法外の方法で元老院を迂回していた。オクタウィウスも同様に憲法に反して拒否権を行使し、国民の明白な意思を妨害しようとした。[ 58 ]
この法律は、公有地を調査して貧しい市民に名目上の賃料で割り当てる3人委員会の設置を規定していた。[ 59 ]学者たちは割り当てを30ユゲラと示唆することが多いが、面積はおそらくもっと小さかった。[ 43 ]ベクティガルと呼ばれる賃料の目的は、国家が土地が放棄されているかどうかを判断し、放棄されている場合は別の家族に再分配できるようにするためであった。受け取った土地は譲渡することもできず、兵役の財産資格の目的で数えられた。[ 60 ]これは私有地の所有には影響を与えず、アッピアーノスとは異なり、イタリアの同盟国に土地を分配することはなかった。[ 61 ]分配される公有地は、500ユゲラを超える土地を占有している者の使用権を取り消すことによって見つけることになっていた（上限は子供1人につき250ずつ増加し、1,000ユゲラまで）。[ 62 ]その代わりに、残りの500ジュゲラは、現在の使用者の手に明確な所有権のもとで完全に私有化される。[ 63 ]
土地の測量を行う三人委員会は、当初はティベリウス自身、弟のガイウス、アッピウス・クラウディウス・プルケルで構成されていた。紀元前132年の護民官選挙で、ティベリウスが護民官に再選されようとした際にプブリウス・コルネリウス・スキピオ・ナシカ・コルクルムの手によって殺害された後、プブリウス・リキニウス・クラッススが後任となった。[ 64 ]三人委員会の土地測量権限は、紀元前129年の元老院の布告によって厳しく制限された。この布告では、三人委員会の測量方法が不十分であるため、ローマが同盟国の財産権を守る義務を妨げていると判断された。その結果、土地所有権に関する判決を下す権限は執政官に移管された。[ 65 ]争いのない土地のほとんどがすでに分配されていたため、この変更は委員会の継続的な活動を著しく遅らせた。[ 66 ]いずれにせよ、考古学的証拠は、紀元前133年から129年の間に三頭政治が約3,268平方キロメートル（約130万ユゲラ）の土地を分配したことを示唆しており、その土地は南イタリアに集中しており、少なくとも15,000世帯を養うことができた。[ 67 ]
ガイウス・グラックスは、後期の護民官時代に、別の土地法案を可決したと記録されている。 紀元前123年に制定されたこの法案[ 68 ]は、おそらく以前の農業法を再制定したもので、分配可能な土地の種類を変更し、土地測量紛争を解決する管轄権を三頭政治に割り当てたものである[ 69 ] 。
グラックス土地委員会の活動は、委員会のメンバーを列挙した発掘された境界石によって考古学的に記録されている。[ 70 ]発見された場所から、研究者たちは、主に南イタリアに集中している3,200平方キロメートル以上の公有地の分布を推定している。[ 71 ]
After passage of the bill, the senate allocated very little money for the commissioners, making it impossible for the commission to do its job when it needed to pay for surveyors, pack animals, and other expenses.[72] After this meagre allotment, however, news arrived that Attalus III of Pergamum had died and that he had bequeathed his treasury and devised his kingdom to Rome.[73] Tiberius proposed using the bequest to finance the land commission, which triggered a wave of opposition.[74] The ancient sources disagree on what the bequest would be used for: Plutarch asserts it was to be used to buy tools for the farmers, Livy's epitome asserts it was to be used to purchase more land for redistribution in response to an apparent shortage. The latter is unlikely, as the process of surveying and distribution were incipient; it is also possible the money was to be used to finance the commission itself.[74]
After this proposal, Tiberius was attacked in the senate by Quintus Pompeius and accused of harbouring regal ambitions.[75] One of the former consuls also brought a lawsuit against Tiberius arguing the deposition of Octavius violated magisterial collegiality and was a dangerous precedent which a sufficiently powerful tribune could exploit to bypass all checks on his power.[76] Tiberius' proposal usurped senatorial prerogatives over finance and foreign policy, breaking a major political norm. Senators also feared that Tiberius intended to appropriate Attalus' bequest to hand out money to his personal benefit.[74]
This was compounded by his attempt to stand for re-election, claiming that he needed to do so to prevent the law's repeal.[77] Consecutive terms violated Roman constitutional norms and may have been illegal.[78] and a mob killed him[79] claiming it was to free the state from an incipient tyrant.[80]
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