Mmakanyane Jk 201941034 European history 11.Sep.

2020
Land Ownership assignment no: 2
The Late Roman Republic land ownership and social conflict
During Late Republic land it was important ,due the demand of food, poverty and the growth
of population. Roman people lived and worked on the land, which make it difficult to have an
access of it ,since the right over use and product were the most important determinant of
wealth. The Roman society was divided into two class, upper class( patrician) which were
the Landlord who have control of law and lower class (plebeians) who are individual who
must serve at army or work under landlords to have access to land(Mikhail,
Rostovtzev.1900,pp.288) .Patrician were considered the upper-class in early Roman society,
they controlled the best land and made up the majority of Roman senate. Although patricians
are often represented as rich and powerful families who managed to secure power over the
less- fortunate plebeian families, plebeians and patricians among senatorial class were often
equally wealthy(Crawford, Michel,1992,pp .110-111).
The patrician which were the landlords in the Republican period where only one whom could
vote and serve in the army. After a landholder was killed in the battle and there was no one
left to work for his farm, his family often fell into debt, lost the property, and work forced to
work as farm labour or travel to Rome and look for a job. The only solution to the problem of
recruits for the army was to create new landowners. The rich started buying up big plots of
land.in the 130s and 140s you have this process of dispossession, where the poorer
Romans are being bought out and are no longer small citizen owners. They are going to be
tenant owners or sharecroppers(Bauer, Susan.2007)
The Republic needed money to run, so it initiated a system called tax farmer, through this
system many of Romans saw this a way to get rich. Since the tax framer decided who got
taxed and who didn’t , so the richest bribe the tax farmer to make their taxes low and whom
to tax(Bauer, Susan.2007). If citizen didn’t pay their taxes, you and your entire family could
be sold into slavery. Under Roman law you could pay someone to vote for you.
”(Abacus.pp.28-30)So rich people which are patrician buy their way into Senate. Since they
bought the position from the Senate, Senate set the amount it cost and decided who actually
got the job and also Senate make all laws, this favours only rich people which are patrician
over the poor the plebeians and slaves”.
“Slaves were the lowest class in society without any rights and considered property of the
master”(Mikhail, Rostovtzev.1900,pp.288). The quality of life as a Roman slave varied
according to one’s master and one’s job. Even so , they still subject to the whims of their
master who could have them beaten, or killed, for any reason. Romans relied heavily on
slaves to whatever jobs they did not want to.
The Roman reform by Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus came between 133 and 121 BC(Stobart,
Jc.1978,pp.76-84). Lex agrarian, of Tiberius was passed by popular support against serious
resistance by nobility. It applied only to former public land , ager publicus, which had been
usurped and concentrated in the hands of large landholders.” Land concentration reduced
the number of owners and hence the number of citizens and those eligible to serve in the
army”(Abacus.pp.28-30). In addition, such concentration was accompanied by a shirt from
cultivation to grazing, which reduced employment and increased the poverty of peasants,
producing a crisis. The concern of this reform the and political stability.
The Lex agrarian specified minimum and maximum individual landholdings, with an
allowance for male children of the family. Excess land would be expropriated, and
compensation paid for improvements.in respond the Senate induced one of the other
tribunes to veto the bill. “Tiberius reacted by having that tribune removed from office. The bill
passed but the senate refused to provide funding for it. That made new law still born until
Tiberius fortunes changed”(Abacus.pp.28-30).
 A king from Asia Minor died and left his kingdom to Rome. Tiberius took that money to fund
the land reform law. standing commission was to enforce the law, but implementation was
delayed because Tiberius was killed in the year of its passage. Tiberius’s younger brother,
Gaius was elected tribune about a decade later, he revived the reform and went even
future.” He colonized new land and abolished rent on small holdings since rent on large
holdings had been suspended as compensation for expropriation”(Crawford,
Michel,1992,pp .110-111”). He passed the Lex frumentary, which gave the poor the right to
buy grain at subsidized price. In the past, the senate eliminated political rivals either by
establishing special judicial commissions or by passing a senates consultum ultimum.(Nigel
Rodger.p.24) Gaius was killed in 121 BC, however , and within a decade the reform was
reversed: private acquisition of public land was legalised, the land commission was
dissolved, rent on public was abolished, all holdings were declared private property, and
squatting on public land was prohibited.
(Stobart ,J.C pp, 75-82.)They formed in reaction against the reforms of the Gracchi brothers
– two tribunes of the plebs between 133 and 121 BC, Who tried to pass an agrarian law to
help the urban poor, and political reform that would have diminished the influence of the
senatorial class. As the Optimates were senators and large landowners, they violently
opposed the Gracchi, and finally murdered them, but their program was upheld by several
politician called Populares for about 80 years , Roman politics was marked by the
confrontations of these two factions. The Optimates were patricians belonging to the oldest
noble families such as Sulla.
The Optimates favoured the ancestral Roman laws and customs, as well the supremacy of
the Senate over popular assemblies and the tribunes of the plebs. They also rejected the
massive extension of Roman citizenship to Rome’s Italian allies advocated by
Populares(Millar, Fergus,2005,pp. 75-76). Although suspicious of powerful generals, they
sided with Pompey when they came to believe that Julius Caesar-himself a Popularism-
planned a coup against the Republic. They disappeared with their defeat in the subsequent
Civil War.
“Following the reform of the general Gaius Marius reformed in the 2nd century BC ,the
legions took on the second, narrower meaning that is familiar in the popular imagination as
close-order citizen heavy infantry”(Duncan, 2007p,23-25). At the end of 2nd century BC,
Gaius Marius reformed the ephemeral legions as a professional force drawing from the
poorest classes, enabling Rome to field large armies and providing employment for jobless
citizens of Rome. However, this put the loyalty of the soldiers in the hands of their general
rather than State of Rome itself. The legions of the late Republic are called Marian legions.
Following the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC, Marius granted all Italian soldiers’ Roman
citizenship. He justified this action to the Senate by saying that in the din of the battle he
could not distinguish Roman from ally, all Italian would be as Roman legions. Roman
citizenship was open to all region of Italy(Mclnnis,Edward.2015,pp,25-45).
From the evidence available ,the imperial estate, land assigned to colonial, and land sold to
Roman private landowners. However, the Gracchi came up with land reform and agrarian
reform, which say land must be expropriate without compensation, got killed. The political
party which support the Gracchi program called Populares up lifted his mission, however
some parties like Optimise where against it. Which their objective favoured rich people to
exploit the poor people called the Plebeians.
The reformers have often faced hard choices to promote and sustain private ownership with
inequality or institute public or collective ownership with equality but with restrictions, to
spread employment by supporting labour intensive ,low-productivity techniques or promote
high maintenance. Although it has been important for improving the status of peasants and
maintaining social and political stability, by giving peasant a stake in the land.