distinguished from the general overlordship which Rome was
supposed to hold over all provincial soil, expressed in the
statement that provincials had only possession or usufruct
of their land (Gaius ii. 7; Gromatici, p. 36, Lachmann).
This overlordship was probably merely a legal fiction by which
the juristic mind assigned a reason for the fact that the
provincials paid a land tax from which Italians were exempt.
Such portions of the territories of conquered cities as were
not claimed by Rome were as a matter of course left in the
undisturbed possession of these cities. If the city was
a federate state (civitas foederata), his possession was
guaranteed by a treaty; if it was a free city, the guarantee
was made by charter; if it was neither federate nor free, the
abandonment of the territory by Rome must have been taken as a
sufficient guarantee of the city's right to possess, although
statements relative to the surrender may have been contained
in the charter of the province (lex provinciae) to which
the city belonged. But, whether the states were federate,
free or stipendiary, there was only one case in which it was
important to specify precisely that land had been restored
(redditus) to its former occupants. This was the case where
Rome had marked out a territory for assignment to her own
citizens, but where in or near the limits of the assignment
some of the land had been left in the hands or its former
proprietors. Such land was noted in the state registers as
redditus veteri possessori. Sometimes it was found that such
an ancient possessor owned pieces of land separated from one
another. In such cases an exchange might be effected between
him and some other possessor, so that his possessions might be
continuous. The fact of such an exchange was symbolized in the
registers by the entry of land redditus et commutatus pro suo.
When the claims of earlier owners had been satisfied, the
state proceeded to deal with such land as it retained. It
dealt with it in two ways. It either alienated it, whether
in exchange for a price or gratuitously; or it kept it as a
source of revenue, whether on a system of lease or on some
system of remunerative occupation. We may first consider
the cases in which the state decided to alienate. The land
might be sold for the benefit of the treasury. Typical
instances of this treatment are furnished by the sale of
some Campanian land during the Second Punic War (Livy xxviii.
46, xxxii. 7). The censors may have directed the sale, but
it was executed by the quaestors as the regular officials
of the treasury. Hence such land was described as ager
quaestorius. The land was sold in definitely marked out
plots, and we must suppose that, as a rule, when this sale
had been effected, the lots fell under the absolute ownership
of their purchasers. Yet there was some period of Roman
history when this ownership was (at least in certain cases)
conditioned. The Roman writers on agriculture speak of
conditions and their neglect (Gromatici, p. 115). The
conditions were probably those of military service or frontier
defence. The epoch of history at which this conditioned
ownership was recognized cannot be determined. It is a form
of tenure that would be equally appropriate to the needs of the
earliest period of Roman history and to those of imperial times.
The second mode of alienation was that by assignation. Lands
thus assigned were known as agri dati assignati. The gift
on the part of the state was gratuitous, and ownership passed
wholly to the assignee. The land so given was definitely
surveyed, marked out and registered. Such an assignment
might take one of two possible forms. It might be the
means of establishing a new ``plantation'' (colonia), with
some independent political organization of its own, however
slight--a settlement, therefore, which could be thought of as
an entity separate from the city of Rome and from any other
municipality. Or it might be the means of providing allotments
for individuals who remained domiciled at Rome or continued
to be members of some already existing municipality. It has
been frequently held in modern times that this latter method of
assignment is the one which our ancient authorities describe as
assignment to individuals (viritim), and that the antithesis
lies between the ``colonial'' and the ``viritane'' method of
distribution. It is true that the passages which speak of
the latter mode of assignation need not, and perhaps cannot,
be interpreted as presenting the antithesis (Varro, de Re
Rustica, i. 2. 7, i. 10. 2; Livy iv. 48, v. 24; Festus, p.
373; Gromatici, pp. 154, 160); yet it is not improbable
that the antithesis is latent in this specific use of the
term. It seems clear that the idea of assignation to, and,
therefore, of ownership by, individuals must originally have
been developed in contrast to the idea of ownership by some
larger group (see ROMAN LAW). When the stage of individual
ownership was reached, all assignation was ``viritane,'' but
only some assignation was ``colonial.'' ``Viritane'' was,
therefore, the wider term which would cover, and may sometimes
have been used specially to denote, the system of non-colonial
assignment. The amount granted to individuals in assignments
of both types varied from time to time. It was reckoned in
terms of the jugerum, which was approximately 5/8 of an English
acre. The earliest and smallest assignment was 2 jugera--an
amount so small that it seems to presuppose on the part of
the recipient some share in common or gentile property or
some additional private property of his own. Other quotas
were 3, 3 7/12, 7, 10 + 14 jugera. The last was the maximum
amount granted before the time of Ti. Gracchus (133 B.C.),
and it was held by representatives of the old school that
7 jugera were as much as any frugal Roman should want
(Pliny, Historia Naturalis, xviii. 18). The division was
carried out by commissions of 3, 5 or 10 men appointed by
the people (Cicero, de Lege Agraria ii. 7. 17). The land
which the state retained as ager publicus was always placed
in the hands of individuals, who occupied it in some manner
remunerative to the state. These individuals (possessores)
were never regarded as owners of the land thus occupied.
It remained the property of the state, was held without a
contract (precario) and could be resumed by the state at
will. But though the possessors had no claim against the
state, their ownership could be defended against all other
individual claimants; and it seems probable that from an
early date the praetor's possessory interdict was used
to protect all occupiers, provided their tenure had been
acquired neither by force (vi) nor by seizure of land in
its occupiers, absence (clam), nor by mere permission of
the previous holder to occupy (precario alter ab altero.)
Moreover, Appian says that possessors of this type could
transfer their land by inheritance, and that the land was
accepted as security by creditors. This kind of occupation,
therefore, though clearly distinguished from ownership
(dominium), was yet regarded as a perfectly secure form of
tenure. All occupiers of public land paid dues to the state
through a state contractor (publicanus.) These dues varied
in amount, and in the method of their collection. We learn
from Appian that the ordinary dues paid by occupiers of
arable land in Italy were 1/10 of seed crops and 1/5 of plant
produce. Owners who turned cattle or sheep on pasture
land belonging to the state also paid fixed dues to the
treasury. The occupiers of the Roman public land in Campania
paid a large rent (Cic. de leg. Agr. i. 7. 21). Appian's
account of the public land (Bell. Civ. i. 7) would lead
us to suppose that the amount of tax paid by the occupier,
and the method adopted by the state for the collection of the
revenues, depended upon the nature of the land at the time
when it first passed to a possessor. He says that some of
the public land which was in a good state of cultivation was
let on lease; but that with regard to the poor or devastated
land proclamation was made that anyone might squat on it and
till it in return for the small payment in kind mentioned
above. It has been questioned whether the land described by
Appian and by Cicero as let on lease, of which the Campanian
land and some lands in Sicily are typical, represents a legally
distinct class. It seems probable that the distinction is
one of practice rather than of law, and that the difference
lay not in the relation between the state and the possessor
(as would be the case if the leased land were really let to
individuals by the censor, while the occupied land was held
by mere permission of the state without any contract) but
in the details of the contract between the censor and the
publicanus with regard to the collection of the dues. The
conditions of the tenure of the Roman public land in Africa
are known to us from the Lex Agraria of 111 B.C. (Bruns,
Fontes, i. 3. 11, vv. 85 foll.). Here the publicanus
is the middleman between the state and the possessor, and
purchases from the censor the right of collecting dues. The
law places no restriction on bargaining between the censor and
the publicanus, but enacts that no possessor or pastor
shall ever be required by the publicanus to pay more than the
amount prescribed by the censors of 115 B.C. These conditions
may be regarded as typical for the occupation of public
lands. And when Cicero speaks of public land as let on lease
(locatus) by the censor, he no doubt refers to the farming
of the taxes to a publicanus for a fixed period, and not
to the letting of the land. This seems clear from a passage
(in Verr. iii. 6. 12) where he speaks of land in Sicily
which had been restored by Rome to former owners as being
leased. The land itself could not be leased by Rome if it
belonged not to Rome but to the Sicilian inhabitants; but the
collection of the revenues due to Rome could be so leased to
Publicani (q.v..) And the same explanation would apply to
Cicero's statements that the Campanian land was let on lease
by the censors (cf. Festus, s.v. venditiones.) The view
that there was a distinct class of the public land which was
let out for a fixed term of years to tenants on a definite
lease, unlike the ordinary public land which was always held
in occupation merely at will (precario), has been maintained
by W. A. Becker, and seems to be supported, with the help
of conjecture, by a few passages in Cicero and by Hyginus
(Gromatici, p. 116). But the passage of Hyginus is barely
intelligible even on this supposition; and Cicero's repeated
statement that the Campanian land was expressly exempted from
the legislation of the Gracchi (cf. Lex Agraria, Bruns, loc.
cit. v. 6) shows that there was not sufficient distinction
between the Campanian tenure and that of other public land in
Italy to make this definite exception by name superfluous.
The Sempronian law could obviously not touch land which the
state had leased to occupiers on the basis of a definite
contract. Moreover, we have absolutely no evidence for such a
contract, even in Cicero's speeches against Rullus, when he
might be expected to mention it as an objection to Rullus's
bill. That there were some distinctive characteristics
about the tenure of certain lands, of which the Campanian
land is typical, seems proved by the repeated association
of these lands with certain special lands in the provinces,
especially at Leontini in Sicily, and by some passages in the
Gromatici where agri vectigales are spoken of as a distinct
