The ''ager publicus'' (; "public land") is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

name for the

public land In all modern states, a portion of land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land, state land, or Crown land (Australia, and Canada). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countrie ...

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

. It was usually acquired via the means of

expropriation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

from enemies of Rome.

History

In the earliest periods of Roman expansion in central Italy, the ''ager publicus'' was used for Roman and (after 338 BC) Latin colonies. Later tradition held that as far back as the 5th century BC, the

patrician Patrician may refer to: * Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage * Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...

and

plebeian In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words " commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of ...

classes disputed the rights of the rich to exploit the land, and in 367 BC two

Plebeian Tribunes Tribune of the plebs, tribune of the people or plebeian tribune ( la, tribunus plebis) was the first office of the Roman state that was open to the plebeians, and was, throughout the history of the Republic, the most important check on the power of ...

, Gaius Licinius Stolo and

Lucius Sextius Sextinus Lateranus Lucius Sextius Sextinus Lateranus was a Roman tribune of the plebs and is noted for having been one of two men (the other being Gaius Licinius Stolo) who passed the Leges Liciniae Sextiae of 368 BC and 367 BC. Originally, these were a set of three ...

promulgated a law which limited the amount of the ''ager publicus'' to be held by any individual to 500 iugera, roughly . In the half century following the

Battle of Telamon The Battle of Telamon was fought between the Roman Republic and an alliance of Celts, Celtic tribes in 225 BC. The Romans, led by the consuls Gaius Atilius Regulus (consul 225 BC), Gaius Atilius Regulus and Lucius Aemilius Papus, defeated the Ce ...

(c. 225 BC), the Romans fully absorbed

Cisalpine Gaul Cisalpine Gaul ( la, Gallia Cisalpina, also called ''Gallia Citerior'' or ''Gallia Togata'') was the part of Italy inhabited by Celts (Gauls) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. After its conquest by the Roman Republic in the 200s BC it was con ...

, adding huge swathes of land to the ''ager publicus'', land which was more often than not given to new Latin colonies or to small freeholders. In the south of Italy, huge tracts of newly re-incorporated lands remained ager publicus, but tended to be leased out to wealthy citizens in return for rents (although these rents were usually not collected), often ignoring the Laws of 367. Other ager publicus remained with the Italian allies from whom it had been confiscated. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus attempted to address some of these violations in 133 BC, by reimposing the limit of 500 iugera and distributing excess land to poor citizens. A similar move by his brother

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus Gaius Sempronius Gracchus ( – 121 BC) was a reformist Roman politician in the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish ...

in 123 BC failed because of his death the following year. In 111 BC, a new law was passed which allowed individual smallholders to assume ownership of their part of the ''ager publicus''. By the Imperial period, much of the ''ager publicus'' in Italy had been distributed to the veterans of generals such as

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force. Sulla had t ...

Gaius Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

and

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of ...

, so that all that remained were the properties of individual cities and common pasture lands. In the provinces, the ''ager publicus'' was huge, and came under the ownership of the emperor. However, in reality, almost all of it was under private occupation.

References

*Drummond, Andrew, "Licinius Stolo, Gaius. Sextius Sextinus Lateranus, Lucius" in Simon Hornblower & Anthony Spawforth (eds.), ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 3rd Edition, (Oxford, 1999), pp. 859–60 * Lewis, Andrew Dominic Edwards, "ager publicus" in Simon Hornblower & Anthony Spawforth (eds.), ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 3rd Edition, (Oxford, 1999), p. 39 *Roselaar, Saskia T., ''Public land in the Roman Republic: a social and economic history of the ager publicus, 396-89 BC'' (Oxford, 2010) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ager Publicus Society of ancient Rome

History

See also

References