Agricultural laws

Roman denarius, 113/112 BC To the lex agraria from 111 BC. BC ( Albert 1075)

The laws of Roman politicians (especially those of the 2nd / 1st century BC) were used as agricultural laws to support the small farmers , whose existence was endangered by the increasing large landowners .

development

Above all, the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus endeavored to restrict the expansion of large estates through the Gracchian reform named after them and to redistribute state land among the poorer peasants. However, they failed due to the opposition of the wealthy classes.

Behind the laws, however, there were also very likely political disputes over power between the various interest groups in the Senate : the tribunes and their supporters, the populars who appealed to the People's Assembly , opposed the optimates that gave priority to the Senate and those who dominated it Demanded the upper class.

The first agricultural law issued in 367 BC Gaius Licinius Stolo , which limited land ownership to 500 yokes ( Latin jugera ). It followed among other things

the agricultural laws of Tiberius Gracchus (133 BC)
the agricultural laws in the Leges Semproniae of Gaius Gracchus (123 BC)
the lex agraria of 111 BC Chr.
the lex Appuleia agraria of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus from 100 BC Chr.
the lex agraria from 59 BC Chr.

literature

Dieter Flach: The field legislation in the age of the Roman revolution . Historical magazine Vol. 217, 1973, pp. 265-295.
Charlotte Schubert : Agricultural laws and political reforms: A study on Roman domestic politics. Univ.-Diss. Bonn, 1980
Nils Steffensen: Venenum Legis Agrariae. The Farm Laws in Livy's Treatment of the Early Republic . 2008

Web links

Theodor Mommsen : The licinischen Ackergesetze in: Roman history. Berlin 1923, Vol. 1, Chapter 3, p. 300

Maik Hager: The field law of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Realpolitik or opposition at any price? 2004

Uwe Walter: Cicero: Second speech to the people against the tribunes Publius Servilius Rullus and the Ackergesetz project seminar , Bielefeld 2013

Individual evidence

↑ the denarius shows a voting scene that presumably refers to the Lex agraria : an official gives a citizen a voting stone while a second citizen throws his voting stone into the ballot box. Cf. Rainer Albert : The coins of the Roman Republic. 1st edition. Battenberg – Gietl Verlag, Regenstauf 2003, p. 134, no. 1075.
↑ Heinrich Honsell, Römisches Recht , 2015, p. 12

[1] the denarius shows a voting scene that presumably refers to the Lex agraria : an official gives a citizen a voting stone while a second citizen throws his voting stone into the ballot box. Cf. Rainer Albert : The coins of the Roman Republic. 1st edition. Battenberg – Gietl Verlag, Regenstauf 2003, p. 134, no. 1075.

[2] Heinrich Honsell, Römisches Recht , 2015, p. 12