The public domain, proving insufficient, had to be supplemented by the purchase of private estates, with the treasurePompey derived from his conquests. According to Suetonius, this law was carried into execution, and 20,000 fathers offamilies received land. He subsequently gave lands to 60,000 more colonists. At the end of the Republic, Sylla, Caesar,Antony, and Octavius, to reward the soldiers who had won them power, distributed among them the treasure and the landsof the conquered; but these were not economic agrarian laws. Nevertheless, they had the effect of re-populating townsruined by the civil wars, and of leading to the formation of new colonies. The emperors also endeavoured to increase thenumber of proprietors. Augustus sent colonists to all the provinces, and founded 28 colonies in Italy. In a single year, 30A.D., 120,000 veterans obtained lands. Nero himself, also, adopted the same policy.
According to M. Macé, agrarian laws, that is to say, the distribution of public land among the citizens, produced the bestresults every time they were really carried into execution: and the aristocracy, by their opposition to them, caused alike theirown ruin and that of the empire.
Pliny says, with much wisdom: latifundia perdidere Itaham, jam vero et provincias ( Hist. Nat . xviii. 7). Italy was handedover to slaves, and no longer subjected to the plough. A few sumptuous villas, and immense pasturages, replaced the variedcultivation, which had been carried on by small proprietors of Latin, Samnite, Etruscan or Campanian origin, and hadmaintained so many flourishing cities.
To maintain the populace of Rome and to support the luxury of the great, it was necessary to pillage the conqueredcountries. Praetors, proconsuls, and public farmers, fell on the provinces like birds of prey, and ruined them to support theidleness of Rome. The free citizens disappeared; and the Roman world, literally devoured by its plutocracy, became the sportof its armies recruited from strangers and barbarians. The fate of the empire was decided by military pronunciamentos .
When the Germans appeared, the country districts and the towns had alike lost great part of their inhabitants.
From the commencement of the Republic the concentration of property had been increasing, and towards the close wasrapidiy accelerated. Cicero was not one of the wealthiest citizens, and yet he possessed numerous estates, one of whichalone had cost 3,500,000 sesterces (nearly ?0,000). When the tribune L. Marcius Philippus introduced his agrarian law, hewas able to assert, that there were only 2,000 citizens to be found in the State, who owned property: non esse in civitateduo millia hominum qui rem haberent (Cic. de Offic . ii. 21). Crassus, the triumvir, besides many houses in Rome, ownedlands valued at 200,000,000 sesterces ; and his wife, Cecilia Metella, was buried on the Via Appia in the splendid tomb,which in the middle ages served as a fortress.
At the time of the first census under Augustus, one Roman citizen, Claudius Isidorus, was found to have 4,116 slaves,60,000,000 sesterces , 360,000 jugera , and 257,000 sheep (Pliny, H. N . xxxiii. 9).
Half of Roman Africa belonged to six proprietors, when Nero made them disgorge (Pliny, Hist. Nat . XVIIL 7). Pliny alsotells us, that in other provinces the whole of the ager publicus was owned by a few families; and Dio Cassius (Lib. xxix.)says, that the whole Thracian Chersonese belonged to Agrippa. An aqueduct, six Roman miles in length, only traversedeleven estates, belonging to nine proprietors! "A country," says Seneca (letter 49), "which once contained a whole people,too narrow for a single individual! How far would you drive your plough, if the boundaries of a province may not limit yourestate? Its rivers run for one man; and, from their source to their mouth, their vast plains, once powerful kingdoms, are yourproperty."
In the Satiricon of Petronius written under Nero, we find a passage which gives some idea of the extent of a Latifundium :
"On the 26 July on the lands of Cumae belonging to Trimalchion, there were born thirty boys and forty girls. They took fromthe threshing-floor, and shut up in his barn 500,000 bushels of corn: they collected in his stalls 500 oxen. The same day theyplaced in his coffers 10,000,000 sesterces , which he could not invest." Appian describes exactly how these latifundia werecreated. "As the Romans subjugated the various parts of Italy, they took a portion of the conquered soil. The cultivated partwas assigned or let to tenants. As for the uncultivated part, it was abandoned undivided to any one who wished to cultivateit, an annual rent of one-tenth of the grain, or one-fifth of other produce, being reserved. The object was to multiply theItalian race, which was patient and courageous, so as to increase the number of citizen soldiers. The contrary, however, ofwhat was intended, took place. For the rich, who were masters of greater part of the undivided lands, emboldened by lengthof possession, obtained by voluntary purchase or actual force the inheritance of their poor neighbours, and created vastestates of their holdings. They employed slaves for their labourers and shepherds. Military service took free men fromagriculture: the slaves, who were exempt from it, replaced them, and rendered the new properties productive. The rich thusbecame disproportionately wealthy, and the number of slaves rapidly increased. In the meanwhile, the Italian race wasimpoverished, and disappeared consumed by taxes, by misery, and by war. The free man was destined to sink into idleness:
