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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
The elucidation of the laws which altered and dismantled the Gracchan agrarian legislation makes many demands on those who approach it. One has to consider possible textual emendation, the probable meaning of expressions in our texts, how this can best fit into a reasonable interpretation. Specifically we have three laws mentioned by Appian, a lex Thoria which appears twice in Cicero, and an inscriptional lex agraria. The last (CIL 12. 2. 585) I have attempted to remove from association with measures mentioned elsewhere on the ground that it is not tribunician. In any event, it will emerge that the laws of Appian should have been passed well before the inscriptional law (dated 111 B.C.). My concern, therefore, is with the process indicated in Appian.
1 ‘The Lex Agraria of 111 B.C. and Procedure in Legislative Assemblies’, Antichihon 12 (1978),45–50.
2 Confident assertions in favour ofGracchus, C.: Gabba, E., Appiano e la storia delle guerre civile (Firenze 1956), 65;Google ScholarGruen, E., Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts 149–78 B.C. (Harvard 1968), 101 n. 115;CrossRefGoogle Scholar for Tiberius, , D’Arms, E.F., ‘The Date and Nature of the Lex Thoria’, AJPh 56 (1935), 232 ff.;Google ScholarDouglas, A.E.,M. Tulli Ciceronis Brutus (Oxford 1966),249;Google ScholarCarcopino, J., Autour des Gracques2 (Paris 1967), 272 n. 64,Google Scholar who seems to think Appian was mistaken; Johannsen, K., Die lex agraria von 111 v. Chr., Text undCommentar (Diss. München 1971);Google ScholarMeister, K., ‘Die Aufhebung der gracchischen Agrarreform’, Historia 23 (1974), 86 ff.Google Scholar
3 On this see Cardinali, G., Studi Gracchimi (Genova 1913), 198 n. 2;Google ScholarChantraine, H., Untersuchungen zur römischen Geschichte am Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Diss. Kallmünz 1959), 18 ff.,Google Scholar discussing previous work. The point that Appian, BC 1. 121. 565 has the reference to some sixty years since the death of Ti. Gracchus and therefore goes back to the same source which used Tiberius as the chronological starting point seems to me to have no force in the present context; Tiberius was, after all, Appian’s starting point.
4 Johannsen, op. cit. 96, has recently pointed to references in the inscriptional law and Cicero ad Att. 1. 19. 4 which use 133 (the consulship of P. Mucius andL. Calpurnius) as the point of definition for ager publiais; but what we are dealingwith is the text of Appian, which must be assessed in its own right.
5 See Gabba, , Appiano 69;Google ScholarDouglas, , Brutus 249 f.;Google Scholar Meister 88 ff.
6 Chantraine 27.
7 E.g. Gabba, loc.cit. and the apparatus ad loc. in his edition of Appian BC 1 (2nd ed. Firenze 1967).
8 Appiano 69; cf. Meister 93.
9 That the attribution of the story is anachronistic does not tell against the point.
10 Cf. also Badian, E., ‘From the Gracchi to Sulla’, Historia 11 (1962), 212.Google Scholar
11 Argued for particularly by Badian, E., ‘The Lex Thoria: a Reconsideration’, Studies in Greek andRoman History (Oxford 1964), 235ff.Google Scholar and over-optimistically accepted as ‘inevitable’ by Gruen, op. cit.102 n. 116.
12 Badian, , Studies 240;Google Scholar Johannsen 71 n. 28; see also Meister 95 f.
13 D’Arms, op. cit. (n. 2 above) 241 ff.; Douglas, A.E., ‘The Legislation of Sp. Thorius’, AJPh 77 (1956), 379;Google ScholarBrutus 248; Sumner, G.V, The Orators in Cicero’s Brutus (Toronto 1972), 90 f.Google Scholar
14 See especially Sumner 160. The lex agraria of 111 does not seem to help in any way; see Douglas, , AJPh 77 (1956), 384 ff.Google Scholar against D’Arms 243 ff.
15 In the Brutus C. Memmius and his brother precede Thorius; C. Memmius also precedes Thorius in de oratore, but any hope of using this is dashed when we see that after Thorius in the latter Cicero talks about ‘the Scipio who brought down Ti. Gracchus’.
16 ‘Cum ageretur de agris publicis et de lege Thoriaet peteretur Lucullus (Lucilius codd. plur.) ab eis, qui a pecore eius depasci agrospublicos dicerent’. The mention of the lex Thoria would seem to be redundant unless it somehow related to the matter in hand. Scriptura, of course, is the term appropriate to money paid for pasturage, but vectigal, the inclusive term for revenues, can subsume it; see Cic. de lege Man. 6. 15: ‘ita neque ex portu neque ex decumis neque ex scriptura vectigal conservan potest’.
17 As I read the passage, it seems the law was in fact in existence, but not all would agree; see Badian, Studies 240. The passage must not be relied upon heavily; cf. Douglas, , AJPh 77 (1956), 392ff.;Google ScholarMattingly, H.B., ‘The Agrarian Law of the tabula Bembina’, Latomus 30 (1971), 285 f.Google Scholar
18 For removal of rent see D’Arms 237; for imposition Badian, , Studies 235 ff.,Google Scholar followed by Meister 91. Douglas’ emendation (Brutus 249) to vectigalem, giving the sense ‘land made to bear rent by a … law’, leaves us wanting an instrument of relief. Seager’s vexavit, given only exempli gratia (‘Cicero, Brutus 136’, CR 17 [1967], 12 f.), seems palaeographically less acceptable and is, in fact, an additional emendation. Mattingly, 287 n. 4, suggested elevavit, in the sense of ‘diminish’, ‘reduce’, ‘whittle away’ but none of his examples cited in justification can in fact justify this meaning of the verb in relation to ager publicus.
19 On this and the difficulties with levavit see Seager, loc. cit.
20 I have been able to check this thanks to the work of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, to the administration of which I tender my thanks for a swift answer to my request for information. There is no use of vectigalis which helps specifically to justify the desired meaning of lex vectigalis.
21 See Douglas, Brutus 249; Mattingly 285 ; contra recently see Meister 90.
22 Indeed vectigalis itself carries different shades of meaning when applied to words like pecunia, equi, civitas, ager.
23 An example cited by Mattingly, indeed, is Cicero de leg. ag. 2. 6. 15: ‘hac lege agraria pulchra et populari…’
24 If the land is seen to be relieved froma lex vectigalis, the same strictures apply as did to such an interpretation of lege without the adjective.
25 See Badian, , Studies 238Google Scholar f. with n.9. Contra Badian, see Seager, loc. cit.
26 So Carcopino, loc. cit. (n. 2 above); Douglas, Brutus 249.
27 Historia 11 (1962), 211 n. 57.
28 We cannot, of course, find an appropriate Sp. Furius, but the possibility of a plebeian of that name is quite open. A certain P. Furius was tribune in 99 B.C. (on whom see Nicolet, C., L’ordre équestre à l’époque républicaine 2 [Paris 1974], 888 ff.).Google Scholar Then there is the Furius who was an expert in ius praediatorium (Cic. Balb. 45; Val. Max. 8. 12. 1), whether or not he is the N. Furius of Cic. de oratore 3. 23. 87, whose praenomen is of interest in this connexion; it, too, is uncommon and, indeed, otherwise unknown among Furii (on N. Furius see Nicolet 890 f.). If they were two separate men, they both seem to belong around 100 B.C. We cannot use this as a defence of Sp. Furius’ existence, but in the state of our knowledge, we are entitled to imagine the reality of such an individual when other evidence points to it.