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Updated: July 1, 2025
The Italian domain-land was not solely in the hands of Roman burgesses; large tracts of it had been assigned in exclusive usufruct to particular allied communities by decrees of the people or senate, and other portions had been occupied with or without permission by Latin burgesses. The allotment- commission at length attacked these possessions also.
By far the greatest portion of the domain-land at his disposal on the Asiatic continent must have been applied by Pompeius for his new settlements; whereas in Crete, about which Pompeius troubled himself little or not at all, the Roman domanial possessions seem to have continued tolerably extensive.
To procure the sums necessary for this purpose, the remaining Italian, and more especially all the extra-Italian, domain-land was successively to be brought to sale; which was understood to include the former royal hunting domains in Macedonia, the Thracian Chersonese, Bithynia, Pontus, Cyrene, and also the territories of the cities acquired in full property by right of war in Spain, Africa, Sicily, Hellas, and Cilicia.
Not only was the duty from the occupied domain-land allowed tacitly to fall into abeyance, as has been already mentioned, but private buildings in the capital and elsewhere were suffered to encroach on ground which was public property, and the water from the public aqueducts was diverted to private purposes: great dissatisfaction was created on one occasion when a censor took serious steps against such trespassers, and compelled them either to desist from the separate use of the public property, or to pay the legal rate for the ground and water.
The distribution of the existing occupied domain-land partly among the holders up to a fair maximum, partly among the plebeians who had no property, in both cases in full ownership; the abolition in future of the system of occupation; and the institution of an authority empowered to make immediate distribution of any future acquisitions of territory, were so clearly demanded by the circumstances of the case, that it certainly was not through want of discernment that these comprehensive measures were neglected.
After the conquest of the Boii and Apuani no new territory was acquired in Italy excepting the far from attractive Ligurian valleys; therefore no other land existed for distribution there except the leased or occupied domain-land, the laying hands on which was, as may easily be conceived, just as little agreeable to the aristocracy now as it was three hundred years before.
This, it is true, was by no means done to the extent to which it might and should have been done; not only was the domain-land occupied from ancient times by private persons not recalled, but further occupations of newly-won land were permitted; and other very important acquisitions, such as the territory of Capua, while not abandoned to occupation, were yet not brought into distribution, but were let on lease as usufructuary domains.
On the other hand he took an important step beyond the agrarian law of Tiberius, when he proposed the establishment of colonies in Italy at Tarentum, and more especially at Capua and by that course rendered the domain-land, which had been let on lease by the state and was hitherto excluded from distribution, liable to be also parcelled out, not, however, according to the previous method, which excluded the founding of new communities, but according to the colonial system.
The resumption of the portions simply occupied by non-burgesses was no doubt allowable in formal law, and not less presumably the resumption of the domain-land handed over by decrees of the senate or even by resolutions of the burgesses to the Italian communities, since thereby the state by no means renounced its ownership and to all appearance gave its grants to communities, just as to private persons, subject to revocation.
The very names of these men are vouchers that the work of resuming and distributing the occupied domain-land was prosecuted with zeal and energy; and, in fact, proofs to that effect are not wanting.
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