restless mass, but full of the activity and the energy which had characterized them in the early centuries of the republic.  They were composed chiefly of the descendants of the ancient plebeian families, decimated by wars and by misery.  They were the heirs of those for whom Spurius Cassius, Terentillius Arsa, Virginius, Licinius Stolo, Publilius Philo, and Hortensius had endured so many conflicts and even shed their blood; but they had become brutalized by poverty, debauchery, and crime.  No longer able to support themselves by labor, they had become beggars and vagabonds.

[Footnote 1:  M. Bureau de la Malle, Ec. polit. des Romains,ch. 15, p. 143; ch. 2, p.231.]

[Footnote 2:  Plutarch, Cato the Censor,6 and 7.]

[Footnote 3:  Horace, Sat.  II, 7; v. 42-43:  “Quid? si me stultior ipso quingentis empto drachmis, deprehenderis.”]

[Footnote 4:  Diodorus, Siculus, Fg. of Bk.  XXXIV.]

[Footnote 5:  Varro, De R.R.  Proem. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 6:  Livy, XXII, 15.]

SEC. 11.—­LEX SEMPRONIA TIBERIANA.

In 133, more than two centuries after the enactment of the law of Licinius Stolo, Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the people for that year, brought forward a bill which was in fact little less than a renewal of the old law.  It provided that no one should occupy more than five hundred jugera of the ager publicus, with the proviso that any father could reserve[1] 250 jugera for each son.[2] This law differed from that of Licinius in that it guaranteed permanent possession of this amount to the occupier and his heirs forever.[3] Other clauses were subjoined providing for the payment[4] of some equivalent to the rich for the improvements and the buildings upon the surrendered estates, and ordering the division of the domain thus surrendered among the poorer citizens in lots of 30 jugera each, on the condition that their portions should be inalienable.[5] They bound themselves to use the land for agricultural purposes and to pay a moderate rent to the state.  It appears that the Italians were not excluded from the benefit of this law.[6]

The design of this bill was to recruit the ranks of the Romans by drafts of freeholders from among the Latins.  Such as had been reduced to poverty were to be restored to independence.  Such as had been sunk beneath oppression were to be lifted up to liberty.[7] No more generous scheme had ever been brought before the Romans.  None ever met with more determined opposition, and for this there was much reason.  There might have been some like the tribune’s friends ready to part with the lands bequeathed to them by their fathers; but where one was willing to confess, a hundred stood ready to deny the claim upon them.  Nor had they any such demands to meet as those of the olden times.  Then the plebeians were a firm and compact body which demanded a share of recent conquests that their own blood and courage had gained.  Now it was a loose and feeble body of various members waiting for a share in land long since conquered, while their patron rather than their leader exerted himself for them.