Agrarian law

Agrarian laws (from the Latin ager, meaning "land") were laws among the Romans regulating the division of the public lands, or ager publicus.

Various attempts to reform agrarian laws were part of the socio-political struggle between the patricians and plebeians known as the Conflict of the Orders.

There existed three types of land in ancient Rome: private land, common pasture, and public land. By the 2nd century BC, wealthy landowners had begun to dominate the agrarian areas of the empire by "renting" large tracts of public land and treating it as if it were private. This began to force out smaller, private farmers with competition; the farmers were forced to move to the cities for this and a number of other factors including battles making living in rural areas dangerous. Roman cities were not good places to attempt to get jobs; they were also dangerous, overcrowded and messy.

Probably the earliest attempt at an agrarian law was in 486 BC. A peace treaty was entered into with the Hernici whereby they agreed to cede two-thirds of their land. Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, Roman consul for the third time, proposed to distribute that land, together with other public Roman land, amongst the Latin allies and the plebs. Cassius proposed a law to give effect to his proposal. Niebuhr suggests that the law sought to restore the law of Servius Tullius, the sixth King of Rome, strictly defining the portion of the patricians in the public land, dividing the remainder amongst the plebeians, and requiring that the tithe be levied from the lands possessed by the patricians.

The proposed law was opposed by the senators (some of whom it seemed were squatting on the public Roman land) and by the other consul Proculus Verginius Tricostus Rutilus. Their opposition to the law was also based on their concerns that Cassius was seeking to gain too much popularity.

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