The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).
the capital—­for that no reliance was to be placed on the country people coming only from time to time to the city, had been sufficiently apparent—­with its interests steadfastly to its leader.  This purpose was served, first of all, by introducing distributions of corn in the capital.  The grain accruing to the state from the provincial tenths had already been frequently given away at nominal prices to the burgesses.(9) Gracchus enacted that every burgess who should personally present himself in the capital should thenceforth be allowed monthly a definite quantity—­ apparently 5 -modii- (1 1/4 bushel)—­from the public stores, at 6 1/3 -asses- (3d.) for the -modius-, or not quite the half of a low average price;(10) for which purpose the public corn-stores were enlarged by the construction of the new Sempronian granaries.  This distribution—­which consequently excluded the burgesses living out of the capital, and could not but attract to Rome the whole mass of the burgess-proletariate—­was designed to bring the burgess-proletariate of the capital, which hitherto had mainly depended on the aristocracy, into dependence on the leaders of the movement-party, and thus to supply the new master of the state at once with a body-guard and with a firm majority in the comitia.  For greater security as regards the latter, moreover, the order of voting still subsisting in the -comitia centuriata-, according to which the five property-classes in each tribe gave their votes one after another,(11) was done away; instead of this, all the centuries were in future to vote promiscuously in an order of succession to be fixed on each occasion by lot.  While these enactments were mainly designed to procure for the new chief of the state by means of the city-proletariate the complete command of the capital and thereby of the state, the amplest control over the comitial machinery, and the possibility in case of need of striking terror into the senate and magistrates, the legislator certainly at the same time set himself with earnestness and energy to redress the existing social evils.

Agrarian Laws
Colony of Capua
Transmarine Colonialization

It is true that the Italian domain question was in a certain sense settled.  The agrarian law of Tiberius and even theallotment-commission still continued legally in force; the agrarian law carried by Gracchus can have enacted nothing new save the restoration to the commissioners of the jurisdiction which they had lost.  That the object of this step was only to save the principle, and that the distribution of lands, if resumed at all, was resumed only to a very limited extent, is shown by the burgess-roll, which gives exactly the same number of persons for the years 629 and 639.  Gaius beyond doubt did not proceed further in this matter, because the domain-land taken into possession by Roman burgesses was already in substance distributed, and the question as to the domains enjoyed by the Latins could only be taken up anew in connection

Copyrights
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The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.