The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 18, April, 1859. Various
the success of Cassius would make against them in two ways:—it would strengthen the Plebeians, by lifting them out of the degradation consequent on poverty, and so render them more dangerous antagonists in political warfare; and it would render the Patricians less able to contend with aspiring foes, by taking from them one of the sources of their wealth. Cassius failed, and was executed, having been tried and condemned by the Patricians, who then alone constituted the Roman people.
More than a century after the failure of Cassius, the Agrarian question was again brought before the Roman nation, on a large scale. This was the time when the famous Licinian rogations, by the adoption of which a civil revolution was effected in Rome, were brought forward. They provided for the passage of an Agrarian law, for an equitable settlement of debts, and that thereafter one of the two Consuls should always be a Plebeian. It is something to be especially noted, that C. Licinius Stolo, the man from whom these laws take their name, was not a needy political adventurer, but a very wealthy man, his possessions being mainly in land; and that he belonged to a gens (the Licinii) who were noted in after days for their immense wealth, among them being that Crassus whose avarice became proverbial, and whose surname was Dives, or the Rich. The Licinian Agrarian law provided, that no one should possess more than five hundred jugers of the public land, (ager publicus,) that the state should resume lands that had been illegally seized by individuals, that a rent should be paid by the occupants of the public domain, that only freemen should be employed on that domain, and that every Plebeian should receive seven jugers of the public land in absolute property, to be taken from those lands which the state was to resume from Patricians who possessed (that is to say, who occupied) more than five hundred jugers. Such were the main provisions of the law, which did not touch private property of any kind. The state was merely to assert its undisputed legal right over the public domain, and the Plebeians became landholders, which was the best thing that could happen to the republic, and which was what was aimed at in every community of antiquity. Even the partial observance of this law was the cause of the supremacy of Rome being established over the finest portions of the ancient world. Had Licinius failed, Rome would have gone down in her contest with the Samnites, and the latter people would have become masters of Italy. As it was, his success created the Roman people; and from the time of that success must be dated the formation of the Roman constitution as it was recognized and acted on during the best period of the Republic. True, the Agrarian law was but one of three measures which he carried through in the face of all the opposition the Patricians could make; but the other laws were of a kindred character, and they all worked together for good. It was the triumph of the Plebeians for the benefit of all. The revolution then effected was strictly conservative in its nature, and whatever of internal evil Rome afterwards experienced was owing, not to the adoption of the Licinian law, but to the departure by the state from the practice under it which it was intended permanently to establish.
The last great Agrarian contest which the Romans had was that which takes its name from the Gracchi, and which began at the commencement of the fourth generation before the birth of Christ. On the part of the reformers, it was as strictly legal a movement as ever was known. Not a single acre of private land was threatened by them; and whoever pays attention to the details of their measures cannot fail to be struck with the great concessions they were ready to make to their opponents,—the men who had literally stolen the public property, and who pretended to hold it as of right. Perhaps it was too late for any such reform as that contemplated by the Gracchi to succeed, the condition of Rome then being in no important respect like what it had been in the time of Licinius Stolo; but one of the most interesting chapters in the history of things which might have been is that which relates to the possible effect of the Sempronian legislation. Had that legislation been fairly tried, Roman history, and therefore human history, must have taken an entirely different course, with an effect on the fortunes of every man born since that time. Whether that effect would have been good or bad, who shall say? But one thing is certain, and that is, that the Gracchi and their supporters were not the enemies of property, and that their measures were not intended to interfere with the private estate of any citizen of the Roman Republic.
Such was the Agrarianism, and such were the Agrarian laws and the Agrarian contests of Rome, which were so long misunderstood; and through that misunderstanding has the word Agrarian, so proper in itself, been made to furnish one of the most reproachful terms that violent politicians have ever used when seeking to bespatter their foes. It will be seen that the word has been applied in "the clean contrary way" to that in which it should have been applied, and that, strictly speaking, an Agrarian is a conservative, a man who asks for justice,—not a destructive, who, in his desire to advance his own selfish ends or those of his class, would trample on law and order alike. It is only within the last seventy years that the world has been made to comprehend that it had for fifty generations been guilty of gross injustice to some of the purest men of antiquity; and it is not more than thirty years since the labors of Niebuhr made the truth generally known,—if it can, indeed, be said to be so known even now. The Gracchi long passed for a couple of demagogues, who were engaged in seditious practices, and who were so very anxious to propitiate "the forum populace" that they were employed in perfecting plans for the division of all landed property amongst its members, when they were cut off by a display of vigor on the part of the government. "The Sedition of the Gracchi" was for ages one of the common titles for a chapter in the history of Republican Rome; yet it did not escape the observation of one writer of no great learning, who published before Heyne's attention was drawn to the subject, that, if there were sedition in the affair, it was quite as much the sedition of the Senate against the Gracchi as it was the sedition of the Gracchi against the Senate.1
The feeling that was allowed to have such sway in Rome, and the triumph of which was followed with such important consequences, has often manifested itself in modern times, in the course of great political struggles, and has proved a powerful disturbing cause on several occasions. One of these occasions has fallen under the observation of the existing generation, and some remarks on it may not be out of place.
The French Revolution of 1848 was followed by an alarm on the part of men of property, or of those whose profits depended on the integrity of property being respected, which produced grave effects, the end whereof is not yet. That revolution was the consequence of a movement as purely political as the world ever saw. There was discontent with the government of M. Guizot, which extended to the royal family, and in which the bourgeoisie largely shared, the very class upon the support of which the House of Orleans was accustomed to rely. Had the government yielded a little on some political points, and made some changes in the administration, Louis Philippe might have been living at the Tuileries at this very moment, or sleeping at St. Denis. But, insanely obstinate, under dominion of the venerable delusion that obstinacy is firmness, the King fell, and with him fell, not merely his own dynasty, but the whole system of government which France had known for a generation, and under which she was, painfully and slowly, yet with apparent sureness, becoming a constitutional state. A warm political contest was converted into a revolution scarcely less complete than that of 1789, and far more sweeping than that of 1830. Perhaps there would have been little to regret in this, had it not been, that, instead of devoting their talents to the establishing of a stable republican government, several distinguished Frenchmen, whom we never can think capable of believing the nonsense they uttered, began to labor to bring about a sort of social Arcadia, in which all men were to be made happy, and which was to be based on contempt for political economy and defiance of common sense. Property, with its usual sensitiveness, took the alarm, and the Parisians soon had one another by the throat. How well founded was this alarm, it would be difficult to say. Most likely it was grossly exaggerated, and had no facts of importance to go upon. That among the disciples of M. Louis Blanc there were gentlemen who had no respect for other men's property, because they had no property of their own, it is quite safe to believe; but that they had any fixed ideas about seizing property, or of providing labor at high wages for workmen, it would be impossible to believe, even if Albert, ouvrier, that most mythical of revolutionists, were to make solemn affidavit of it on the works of Aurora Dudevant. Some vague ideas about relieving the wants of the poor, Louis Blanc and his associates had, just as all men have them who have heads to see and hearts to feel the existence of social evils. Had they obtained possession of the French government, immediately after Louis Philippe, to use his own words,
We have taken for granted the soundness of the views of Niebuhr on the Roman Agrarian contests and laws, that eminent scholar having followed in the track of Heyne with distinguished success; but it must be allowed that in some respects his positions have been not unsuccessfully assailed. Those who would follow up the subject are recommended to study Ihne's