posed measure of Rullus would have turned them all out; there was not here, says Cicero (ii. 30), the pretext that the public lands were lying waste and unproductive; they were in fact occupied profitably by the possessors, and profitably to the state, which derived a revenue from the rents. The ten persons (decemviri) were to have full power for five years to sell all that belonged to the State, and to decide without appeal on all cases in which the title of private land should be called in question. With the money thus raised it was proposed to buy lands in Italy on which the poor were to be settled, and the decemviri were to be empowered to found colonies where they pleased. This extravagant proposal was defeated by Cicero, to whose three orations against Rullus we owe our information about this measure. this measure; but it was reproduced, as amended by Cicero, by C. Julius Cæsar, who was consul in the following year, B.C. 59. The measure was opposed by the senate, on which Cæsar went further than he at first intended, and included the Stellatis Ager and Campanian land in his law. This fertile tract was distributed among twenty thousand citizens who had the qualification which the law required, of three children or more. Cicero observes (Ad Attic. ii. 16), "That after the distribution of the Campanian lands and the abolition of the customs' duties (portoria), there was no revenue left that the State could raise in Italy, except the twentieth which came from the sale and manumission of slaves." After the death of Julius Cæsar, his great nephew Octavianus, at his own cost and without any authority, raised an army from these settlers at Capua and the neighbouring colonies of Casilinum and Calatia, which confirmation of this illegal proceeding, and a commission to prosecute the war against Marcus Antonius. Those who had received lands by the law of the uncle supported the nephew in his ambitious designs, and thus the settlement of the Campanian territory prepared the way for the final abolition of the republic. (Compare Dion. Cassius, xxxviii. 1-7, and xlv. 12.) In the year B.C. 60 the tribune Flavius brought forward an Agrarian law, at the instigation of Pompey, who had just re-enabled him to exact from the senate a turned from Asia, and wished to distribute lands among his soldiers. Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (i. 19), speaks at some length of this measure, to which he was not entirely opposed, but he proposed to limit it in such a way as to prevent many persons from being disturbed in their property, who, without such precaution, would have been exposed to vexatious inquiries and loss. He says, "One part of the law I made no opposition to, which was this, that land should be bought with the money to arise for the next five years from the new sources of revenue (acquired by Pompey's conquest of Asia). The senate opposed the whole of this Agrarian measure from suspicion that the object was to give Pompey some additional power, for he had shown a great eagerness for the passing of the law. I proposed to confirm all private persons in their possessions; and this I did without offending those who were to be benefited by the law; and I satisfied the people and Pompey, for I wished to do that too, by supporting the measure for buying lands. This measure, if properly carried into effect, seemed to me well adapted to clear the city of the dregs of the populace, and to people the wastes of Italy." A disturbance in Gallia Cisalpina stopped The character of the Roman Agrarian laws may be collected from this sketch. They had two objects: one was to limit the amount of Public land which an individual could enjoy; the other was to distribute public land from time to time among the plebes and veteran soldiers. A recent writer, the author of a useful work (Dureau de la Malle, Economie Politique des Romains), affirms that the Licinian laws limited private property to five hundred jugera; and he affirms that the law of Tiberius Gracchus was a restoration of the Licinian law in this respect (ii. 280, 282). On this mistake he builds a theory, that the law of Licinius and of Tiberius Gracchus had for their" object to maintain equality of fortunes and to create the legal right of all to attain to office, which is the fundamental basis of democratic government.” 66 His examination of this part of the subject is too superficial to require a formal confutation, which would be out of place here. But another writer already quoted (Rudorff, Zeitschrift für Geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, x. 28) seems to think also that the Licinian maximum of five hundred jugera applied to private land, and that this maximum of five hundred jugera was applied by Tiberius Gracchus to the Public land. Livy (vi. 35), in speaking of the law of Licinius Stolo, says merely Nequis plus quingenta jugera agri possideret," but, as Niebuhr observes, the word "possideret" shows the nature of the land without the addition of the word Public. And if any one doubts the meaning of Livy, he may satisfy himself what it is by a comparison of the following passages (ii. 41; vi. 4, 5, 14, 16, 36, 37, 39, 41). The evidence derived from other sources confirms this interpretation of Livy's meaning. That the law of Gracchus merely limited the amount of Public land which a man might occupy, is, so far as we know, now admitted by everybody except Dureau de la Malle; but a passage in Cicero (Against Rullus, ii. 5), which he has referred to himself in giving an account of the proposed law of Rullus, is decisive of Cicero's opinion on the matter; not that Cicero's opinion is necessary to show that the laws of Gracchus only affected Public land, but his authority has great weight with some people. | tion to it.* The law of Tiberius Gracchus forbade the poor who received assignments of land from selling them; a measure evidently framed in accordance with the general character of the enactments of Licinius and Gracchus. The subsequent repeal of this measure is considered by most writers as a device of the nobility to extend their property; but it was a measure as much for the benefit of the owner of an allotment. To give a man a piece of land and forbid him to sell it, would often be a worthless present. The laws of Licinius and Gracchus, then, though they did not forbid the acquisition of private property, prevented any man from employing capital on the public land beyond a certain limit; and as this land formed a large part of land available for cultivation, its direct tendency must have been to discourage agriculture and accumulation of capital. The law of Licinius is generally viewed by modern writers on Roman history as a wise measure; but it will not be so viewed by any man who has sound views of public economy; nor will such a person seek, with Niebuhr, to palliate by certain unintelligible assumptions and statements the iniquity of another of his laws, which deprived the creditor of so much of his principal money as he had already received in the shape of interest. The law by which he gave the plebeians admission to the consulate was in itself a wise measure. Livy's view of all these measures may not be true, but it is at least in accordance with all the facts, and a much better comment on them than any of Livy's modern critics have made. The rich plebeians wished to have the consulate opened to them: the poor cared nothing about the consulate, but they wished to be relieved from debt, they wished to humble the rich, and they wished to have a share of the booty which would arise It is however true, as Dureau de la Malle asserts, that the Licinian laws about land were classed among the Sumptuary laws by the Romans. The law of Licinius, though not directly, did in effect limit the amount of capital which an individual could apply to agriculture and the feeding of cattle, and jealousy of the rich was one motive for this enactment. It also imposed on the occupier of public land a number of free men: if they were free labourers, as Niebuhr supposes, we presume that the law fixed their wages. But their business was to act as spies and informers in case of any violation of the law. This is clear from the passage of Appian above referred to, the literal meaning of which is requires further consideration. All that can be what has been here stated, and there is no safely said at present is that Niebuhr's explana authority for giving any other interpretation is not warranted by the words of Appian. *The precise meaning of this passage of Appian is uncertain. If the words τὰ γιγνόμενα refer to the produce, their duty was to make a proper return for the purpose of taxation, that But this passage is, of the tenths and fifths. from the law as to the 500 jugera. They would have consented to the law about the land and the debt, without the law about the consulate; but the tribunes told them that they were not to have all the profit of these measures; they must allow the proposers of them to have something, and that was the consulate they must take all or none. And accordingly they took all. The other main object of the Agrarian laws of Rome was the distribution of public land among the poor in allotments, probably seldom exceeding seven jugera, about five English acres, and often less. Sometimes allotments of twelve jugera are spoken of. (Cicero against Rullus, ii. 31.) The object of Tiberius Gracchus in this part of his legislation is clearly expressed; it was to encourage men to marry and to procreate children, and to supply the state with soldiers. To a Roman of that age, the regular supply of the army with good soldiers would seem a sound measure of policy; and the furnishing the poorer citizens with inducement enough to procreate children was therefore the duty of a wise legislator. There is no evidence to show what was the effect on agriculture of these allotments; but the ordinary results would be, if the lands were well cultivated, that there might be enough raised for the consumption of a small family; but there would be little surplus for sale or the general supply. These allotments might, however, completely fulfil the purpose of the legislators. War, not peace, was the condition of the Roman state, and the regular demand for soldiers which the war would create, would act precisely like the regular emigration of the young men in some of the New England States: the wars would give employment to the young males, and the constant drain thus caused would be a constant stimulus to procreation. Thus a country from which there is a steady emigration of males never fails to keep up and even to increase its numbers. What would be done with the young females who would be called into existence under this system, it is not easy to conjecture; and in the absence of all evidence, we must be content to remain in ignorance. It is not | stated how these settlers obtained the necessary capital for stocking their farms; but we read in Livy, in a passage already quoted, that on one occasion the plebes were indifferent about the grants of lands, because they had not the means of stocking them; and in another instance we read that the treasure of the last Attalus of Pergamus was to be divided among the poor who had received grants of lands. A gift of a piece of land to a man who has nothing except his labour, would in many cases be a poor present; and to a man not accustomed to agricultural labour-to the dregs of Rome, of whom Cicero speaks, it would be utterly worthless. There is no possible way of explaining this matter about capital, except by supposing that money was borrowed on the security of the lands assigned, and this will furnish one solution of the difficulties as to the origin of the plebeian debt. It is impossible that citizens who had spent most of their time in Rome, or that broken-down soldiers should ever become good agriculturists. What would be the effect even in the United States, if the general government should parcel out large tracts of the public lands, in allotments varying from two to five acres, among the population of New York and Philadelphia, and invite at the same time all the old soldiers in Europe to participate in the gift? The readiness with which the settlers in Campania followed the standard of young Octavianus shows that they were not very strongly attached to their new settlements. The full examination of this subject, which ought to be examined in connexion with the Roman law of debtor and creditor, and the various enactments for the distribution of grain among the people of Rome, would require an ample volume. The subject is full of interest, for it forms an important part of the history of the Republic from the time of the legislation of Licinius; and it adds one to the many lessons on record of useless and mischievous legislation. It is true that we must make some distinction between the laws of Licinius and the Gracchi, and such as those proposed by Rullus and Flavius; but all these legis lative measures had the vice either of interfering with things that a state should not interfere with, or the folly of trying to remedy by partial measures those evils which grew out of the organization of the state and the nature of the social system. The subject of the Roman revenue derived from the Public Land has not been discussed here. This belongs to LANDTAX, REVENUE, and TAXATION. The nature of the Agrarian laws, particularly those of Licinius and the Gracchi, has often been misunderstood in modern times; but it is a mistake to suppose that all scholars were equally in error as to this subject. The statement of Freinsheim, in his Supplement to Livy, of the nature of the legislation of the Gracchi, is clear and exact. But Heyne (Opuscula, iv. 351) had the merit of putting the matter in a clear light at a time, during the violence of the French revolution, when the nature of the Agrarian laws of Rome was generally misunderstood. Niebuhr, in his Roman History, gave the subject a more complete examination, though he has not escaped error, and his economical views are sometimes absurd. Savigny (Das Recht des Besitzes, p. 172, 5th ed.) also has greatly contributed to elucidate the nature of possession of the public land, though the main object of his admirable treatise is the Roman law of possession as relates to private property. AGRICULTURE (from the Latin Agricultura). The economical relation of agriculture to other branches of industry is the subject of the following remarks. The question has sometimes been propounded whether agriculture or manufactures are more useful to a state, or, in other words, whether agriculture or other branches of industry contribute most to the wealth of a state; and whether a state should give more encouragement to agriculture or manufactures. Such questions imply that there is something which essentially distinguishes manufactures from agriculture; and also that a state can and ought to give a direction to industry. Agriculture is the raising of vegetable products from the soil, which are either consumed in their raw state or used as materials on which labour is employed in order to fashion them to some useful purpose. Manufactures, in the ordinary sense of the term, comprise the various modes of working up the raw products of agriculture and mining. So far there is a distinction between agriculture and manufactures; agriculture is auxiliary and necessary to the other. In the popular notion, the difference in these two processes, the raising of a product from the ground and the working up of the product into another form, constitutes an essential difference between these two branches of industry; and accordingly agriculture and manufactures are often spoken of as two things that stand in opposition or contrast, and they are often viewed as standing in a hostile opposition to one another. But such a distinction between agriculture and manufactures has no real foundation. Those agricultural products which are articles of foodas bread, the chief of all-are essentials, and the industry of every country is directed to obtaining an adequate supply of such articles, either from the produce of such country or by foreign trade. Some of the various kinds of grain which are used as food are the prime and daily articles of demand in all countries. Agricultural articles which are employed as materials out of which other articles are made, such as cotton, are only in demand in those countries where they can be worked up into a new and profitable form. The varieties of soil and climate render some parts of the world more fit to produce grain, and others more suitable for cotton. Ever since the earliest records of history the people of one country have exchanged their products for the products of other countries; and if the matter were simply left to the wants and wishes of the great majority of mankind, no one would trouble himself with the question of the relative superiority of the process by which he produces grain or cotton, and the art by which his cotton is turned into an article of dress in some other country, and sent back to him in that new form to be exchanged for grain or more raw cotton. He might not perceive any essential difference in the process of turning the earth, committing the seed to it, and reaping the crop at maturity; and the process by which the raw material which he has produced, such as flax or cotton, is submitted to a variety of operations, the whole of which consist only in giving new forms to the material or combining it with other materials. In both cases man moves or causes motion; he changes the relative places of the particles of matter, and that is all. He creates nothing; he only fashions anew. The amount of his manual labour may be greatly reduced by mechanical contrivances, and much more in what are called manufactures than in what is termed agriculture; so that if the amount of the direct labour of hand is to be the measure of the nature of the thing produced, agricultural products are more manufactures than manufactured articles are. Some branches of agriculture, such as wine-making, indeed belong as much to manufactures, in the ordinary sense of that term, as they belong to agriculture. The cultivation of the vine is an essential part of the process of wine-making: but the making of the wine is equally essential. Indeed there are few agricultural products which receive their complete value from what is termed agriculture. Corn must be carried to the market, it must be turned into flour, and the flour must be made into bread, before the corn is in that shape in which it is really useful. Agriculture therefore only does a part towards the process of making bread, though the making of bread is the end for which corn is raised. It is true that in agricultural countries the processes by which many raw products are fashioned to their ultimate purpose, are often carried on by agriculturists and on the land on which the products are raised. But agriculture, as such, only produces the raw matter, corn, flax, grapes, sugar-cane, or cotton. If any agriculturist makes flour, linen, wine, sugar, or cotton-cloth, he does it because he cannot otherwise produce a saleable commodity; but the making of flour or wine or cloth is a manufacturing operation, as the word manufacture is understood. Besides the manufacture of agricultural products, there is the manufacture of the products of mines. A mine cannot be classed altogether either with manufactures or agriculture, as these terms are vulgarly understood. Mining produces raw products, which have no value till they are subjected to the various processes by which an infinite variety of useful articles are made out of them. So far mining bears the same relation to certain branches of industry that agriculture does to other branches of industry which it supplies with raw materials. Fisheries produce a supply of food, and are therefore precisely like those branches of agriculture which are directed solely to the production of food. Now if the question be, which of all these branches of industry adds most to wealth, or, in other words, is most useful to mankind, the answer must be,-they are all equally useful. If it be urged, that some are of more intimate necessity than others, inasmuch as food is essential and therefore its production is the chief branch of industry, it may be replied, that in the present condition of man it is not possible to assert that one branch of industry is more useful than another; each depends on every other. Further, if food is essential to all men in all countries, clothing and houses are equally essential even to the support of life in most countries; and the production of clothing and the building and furnishing of convenient houses comprehend almost every branch of manufacturing industry which now exists. It is an idle question to discuss the relative value of any branches of industry, when we found the comparison upon a classification of them which rests on no real difference, and leave out of the question their aptitude to minister to our wants. One might discuss the relative value of the manufacture of scents and perfumes, and the manufacture of wine and beer; and the foundation of the comparison of value might be the number of persons who use or wish to use the two things, and the effect which the consumption of scents and perfumes on the one hand, and of wine and beer on the other, will have on the consumers and the condition of those who produce them. But though it is an idle question to discuss the relative value of the variety |